MASTODONS, MAMMOTHS AND OTHER PLEISTOCENE MAMMALS 95 



they were found in the peat of a swamp at Aquetuck, Albany 

 county, July 16, 1902. The single tooth in the collection of the State 

 Museum which can be referred to this locality, can not be distin- 

 guished from Equus caballus and although discolored does 

 not appear to have undergone any other change. 90 



Teeth of a horse from Troy, N. Y., which were regarded as fossil, 

 were presented to the New York State Cabinet of Natural History 97 

 in 1859 and mentioned in the report for that year and in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History for 1859, 

 6:303-4. There is no account of the circumstances of the dis- 

 covery nor are the specimens to be found in the museum's 

 collections. 



C. Hart Merriam 98 in his account of the Adirondack mammals, 

 mentions a fossil horse under the name Equus m aj o r. "It 

 is also worthy of remark that wild horses, larger than our domesti- 

 cated stock, once roamed the borders of this region. Dr C. C. 

 Benton, of Ogdensburg, has shown me several fossil molar teeth of 

 Equus major that were exhumed at Keenes Station near the 

 Oswegatchie Ox Bow in Jefferson county. I have compared them 

 with the corresponding teeth in an immense dray-horse, and find 

 them much larger." DeKay (ibid) applied the name, Equus 

 major to remains of a horse found near Neversink Hills in New 

 Jersey but as Gidley 99 has pointed out, the name is practically a 

 nomen nudum as no figures or measurements were given and the 

 original specimens lost. 



In the absence of more conclusive evidence than is offered by the 

 records presented above, the conservative view is to regard the 

 existence of a late Pleistocene horse in New York as yet unproved. 



96 N. Y. State Mus., 56th Annual Rep't 1904, p. r. 158. 

 w N. Y. State Cab. Nat. Hist., 12th Annual Rep't 1859, p. 109. 

 "The Mammals of the Adirondack Region, 1886, p. 145. 

 "Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. Bui. 1906, 14:91-141. 





