THE AMERICAN BISONS. 91 



parison of them with the teeth of the buffalo and of the common ox seemed 

 to leave no doubt of their identity with the latter, as I had no difficulty in 

 exactly matching them in every particular, and especially in respect to the 

 character of the folds of the enamel, in the teeth of the domestic ox, while 

 there was a constant variation in several points from those of the buffalo. 

 Later I have found so much variation in the teeth, not only of the domestic 

 species but also of the buffalo, that this test of their identity fails to be a 

 valid one, as I have also found buffalo teeth that closely resemble those from 

 Gardiner. The weight of evidence on this ground, however, is decidedly in 

 favor of their identity with those of the domestic ox. In order to give the 

 evidence impartially, I intended to present in Plate XT first, a series of 

 figures of the teeth of the bison and the domestic ox, for the double purpose 

 of showing not only the range of structural variation in the teeth of the 

 undomesticated bison, and the slight reliance that can safely be placed on 

 single teeth in determining specific differences, but also to figure the four 

 teeth found in the Gardiner clays in order to show their similarity to those 

 of the domestic ox. This, however, circumstances beyond my control have 

 prevented me from doing, only a single tooth from Gardiner, belonging to 

 the Boston Society of Natural History, being represented on the Plate.* 

 Upon the settlement of the question of the identity or non-identity of these 

 teeth with those of the bison hinges the validity of the only supposed evi- 

 dence we have respecting the former existence of the bison in New England, 

 or anywhere east of the Great Lakes. 



In addition to the original notice already quoted from Lyell, respecting the 

 occurrence of bison's teeth in Maine, Dr. A. S. Packard, Jr., refers to it in 

 the American Naturalist,! and in the Memoirs of the Boston Society of Nat- 

 ural History. X In each case, however, the authority is the same, that of 

 Lyell, who is, however, represented as having himself discovered the speci- 

 mens in the clay-beds. Dr. Packard, indeed, speaks of the " intermingling 

 of the bones [teeth] of the walrus and the bison in the same beds," but 

 there is no record showing that they were actually thus associated. § 



* A few mouths since the teeth, with Mrs. Elton's general collection of the tertiary fossils of Gardiner, 

 Maine, were presented by her to Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine. My subsequent request for the 

 loan of the teeth to figure the Curator of the Museum declined to grant. 



t Vol. I, p. 2G8, 1867; Vol. VI, p. 98, 1872. 



t Vol. I, pp. 243, 246, pi. vii, fig. 18, 1867. 



§ Says Dr. Packard: "The deposits of Gardiner possess great interest, owing'to their unusual thickness, 

 and the rich assemblage of marine invertebrates which occur from the lowest to the highest strata, and 



