80 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



turn were overlaid by peaty layers." One left metacarpus, one 

 right metacarpus and antler fragments with adhering particles of 

 shells were found." Burnett Smith, ibid. 



Mitchill 69 records the finding of fragments of two deers' horns a 

 short distance below the surface of the ground in Stuyvesant street, 

 New York city. 



Cervus canadensis (Erxleben) Elk 



Under the name Elaphus americans, " Fossil stag,' 

 DeKay 70 gave a description and measurements of " a portion of a 

 pair of horns attached to a fragment of skull, dug up near the mouth 

 of Raquet river in this State." Joseph Leidy, 71 in 1869, pointed 

 out the identity of this specimen with the common elk and later, 

 C. Hart Merriam 72 expressed the same opinion, basing his con- 

 clusion on the comparative measurements given by DeKay. A horn 

 of the second year's growth from Grand Isle, Vermont, which 

 was also referred by DeKay to his fossil species, has since been 

 shown to belong to the elk. 73 A single tooth from Chautauqua 

 county, mentioned and figured by DeKay and placed provisionally 

 under this species, will be discussed under Cervalces. 



Merriam (ibid) noted specimens of antlers from Steel's Corners, 

 St Lawrence county, and two sections of horns, " ploughed up in 

 an old beaver meadow in Diana, Lewis Co." 



Hall 74 records the discovery of an elk horn in a muck deposit at 

 the summit level of the Genesee Valley canal near New Hudson, 

 4 miles from Cuba, N. Y. These, with several deer's horns, were 

 found at a depth of 12 feet below the surface. 



In 1886, about two-thirds of the entire skeleton of an elk was 

 taken from the muck of a swamp in the northern part of the town 

 of Farmington, Ontario county. 75 



In the account of the mastodon from Seneca, Ontario county, 

 mention is made of the discovery in 1885, of part of an antler of 

 an elk at a depth of 3 feet below the surface and beneath a deposit 

 of marl and diatomaceous earth. 76 



G. S. Miller, quoting from a letter of Dr Fred F. Drury, gives 



69 Cat. Organic Remains, New York, 1826. 



70 DeKay, Nat. Hist. N. Y., Zool. pt 1, 1842, p. 120. 



71 Acad. Nat. Sci. Phil. Jour., 1869, 7:377. 



73 Mammals of Adirondacks, 1886, p. 144. 

 "Letter of G. H. Perkins, dated Jan. 17, 1898. 



74 Hall, Nat. Hist. N. Y., Geol. pt 4, 1843, P- 367. 



75 Clarke, 6th Annual Rep't, State Geol. N. Y. 1887, p. 39. 



76 N. Y. State Mus. Bui. 69, 1903, p. 931. 



