MAMMALIA. 



Order PROBOSCIDEA. 



Family ELEPHANTIDAE. 



At least three species of elephantids, using the term in its broadest 

 sense to include mastodon, occur within the limits of the State of Mary- 

 land; the well-known American mastodon, Mammut americanum, the 

 northern mammoth Elephas primigenius, and the southern or Columbian 

 mammoth, Elephas columbi. It is possible that a fourth species, Mammut 

 dbscurus, may yet be detected within the State, but this appears to have 

 been a southern form and like the ground sloths and glyptodons, an im- 

 migrant from South America. 1 None of these species can be said to 

 have been common within the State of Maryland, and it may be that 

 the Potomac to the south and the mountains to the west deflected the 

 course of distribution to the north and east just as still farther eastward 

 the Catskills and the Hudson Eiver stopped progress in that direction, 

 and practically marked the eastern limit of the elephants in North 

 America. 



Maryland is of interest as marking very nearly the eastern limit of the 

 true elephants and the most northern limit of Elephas columbi on the 

 Atlantic coast, for while both species probably occur in New Jersey, yet 

 our tangible evidence is at present based upon Maryland specimens. 



At Oxford Neck, on the Eastern Shore, examples of Elephas columbi 

 and Elephas primigenius were found within a mile of one another, so 

 that the overlapping of the range of these species on the Atlantic coast 

 is as well marked as on the Pacific coast, where at Port Townsend, Wash- 

 ington state, both species have been found almost side by side. 



1 The so-called Baltimore tooth discussed at length in Warren's Memoir on 

 Mastodon giganteus may have been from Maryland, but the chances are against 

 this and it is more likely to have come from North Carolina. 



