268 THE ICE AGE IN CANADA. 



able to determine the species, sent the specimen to Dr. Leidy, of Phila- 

 delphia. He recognized the bones as those of the hinder extremity of 

 a young seal, but of what species was uncertain. A good figure and 

 description were published in the first volume of the Naturalist in 1856. 

 No further information bearing directly on this fossil was secured until 

 the discovery some years ago of a jaw bone of a young individual of 

 this species by Sir J. Grant. It is the left ramus of the lower jaw of a 

 young seal, containing a canine and four molar teeth, with an impres- 

 sion of the fifth. It enables us to affirm that the species is Phoca 

 Oroenlandica [PagopMlus Grmnlandicus of Gray's catalogue)— the 

 common Greenland seal, and it is of such size that it may have 

 belonged to the same individual which furnished the bones described 

 in 1856, or at least to an animal of the same species and of similar age. 



Beluga catodon {Belphinapterus leucas, Pallas ; Beluga vermontana, 

 Thompson). 



Bones of this species have been found at Riviere-du-Loup and at 

 Montreal, in the Saxicava sand near Cornwall (Billings) and in the same 

 deposit near Bathurst (Gilpin and Honeyman). There seems no good 

 reason to believe that the B. Vermontana of Thompson from the 

 Pleistocene of Vermont is distinct from this species. 



Megaptera longimana. Gray. 



Portions of a skeleton of this species were found in 1882 in a ballast 

 pit on the Canadian Pacific Railway, three miles north of Smith's Falls, 

 in Ontario, 31 miles north of the St. Lawrence River. They were im- 

 bedded in gravel along with shells of Tellina Oroenlandica, apparently 

 on a beach of the Pleistocene period at an elevation of 440 feet above 

 the sea, which corresponds nearly with one of the principal sea coast 

 terraces on the Montreal mountain and other parts of the St. Lawrence 

 valley. 



The specimens obtained were presented by Mr. A. Baker, of the 

 C. P. Railway, to the Peter Redpath Museum. They consist of a 

 lumbar and dorsal vertebra and a rib, and correspond with these bones 

 in the species above named, which seems to be Balcena hoops of 

 Fabricius. It is still found in the Gulf of St, Lawrence, and is more 

 disposed than the other large whales to extend its excursions some 

 distance into the estuary of the St. Lawrence and other narrow seas. 



Belcher (Last of the Arctic Voyages, 1853) mentions the occurrence 

 of the bones of a large whale imbedded in clay at Mount Parker, at an 

 elevation of 500 feet ; and at Cape Disraeli a similar specimen at 

 about the same elevation. On the Lower St. Lawrence, bones of large 



