252 



THE AUEIFEEOUS GEAVELS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 



want of the necessary care. Some fine skulls, nearly perfect, were still in 

 existence in the miners 7 camps, near Sonora, when that region was first 

 visited by the writer; but they were not to be bought at any reasonable 

 price. Occasionally such specimens are carried to San Francisco and placed 

 on exhibition, always at a great pecuniary loss to the exhibitors. Two line 

 heads from Horseshoe Bend, on the Merced Eiver, were thus exhibited some 

 years since, the owner believing them to be of fabulous value. So far as 

 known to the writer, they did not find their way into any public museum, 

 where they would be likely to be cared for and preserved. 



By fir the larger number of specimens collected in California or elsewhere 

 in the United States belong to the common, well-known species, M. Americanus. 

 But besides this, there appear, according to the latest expressed opinion of 

 Dr. Leidy,* to have been at least three others which inhabited this continent: 

 these are M. mirificus, M. Andwm, and M. obsciirus. Of the first of these, 

 remains have been found by Dr. Hayden, in association with an abundance 

 of those of other species of extinct animals, in the Pliocene formation of 

 the Loup Fork of Platte River. Remains apparently identical with the 

 South American M. Andiam have been discovered in Central America, and 

 the fourth species, M. obsciirus of Leidy, is known only by specimens col- 

 lected in California and New Mexico. For a full account of the relations of 



i 



these different species, their mode of occurrence, and their distribution, many 

 different works must be consulted. The species which interests us particu- 

 larly, next to M. Americanus, is M. obsciirus, and the specimens of this which 

 have been found in California are described and figured in Dr. Leidy's " Con- 

 tributions, &c."t There are two localities, so far as known to the writer, 

 where the remains of M. obsciirus have been found, one in the Coast Ranges 

 and one in the foot-hills of the Sierra. The Coast Range locality is Oak 

 Springs, Contra Costa County; the other is at Dry Creek, in Stanislaus 

 County. Both of these were discovered by Dr. Yates. There is also a cast 

 in plaster of a mastodon tooth in the Museum of the Philadelphia Academy, 

 the original of which is supposed to have been found in the Miocene of Mary- 

 land. The specimen from the foot-hills of the Sierra was at first considered 

 by Dr. Leidy as distinct from the one obtained in Contra Costa County, and 

 was described by him under the name of M. Shcpardi ; but he afterwards 

 included it with M. obsciirus. He says, in reference to this matter and to the 



* Contributions, &c, p, 231. 



t 1. a, pp. 231 -237, and Plates XXI. and XXII. 





>< 



