214 DESCRIPTION OF VERTEBRATE REMAINS, CHIEFLY 



Ashley phosphate beds was recently presented to the Academy by Mr. George T. 

 Lewis. It comprises a portion of the shaft with one condyle and the trochlea of 

 the patella, and accords in size and other characters with the corresponding portion 

 of the same bone in the South American Megatherium. What remains of the 

 specimen is well preserved, but is not petrified. It is black, like the tooth above 

 described, but is not water-worn, nor does it exhibit any of the marks of boring 

 mollusks or attachments of others, so frequent among the marine fossils of the 

 Ashley beds. It perhaps belonged to an animal which became mired and perished 

 when the Ashley beds were elevated above the sea level and formed marsh lands. 



MANATUS. 



Manattjs antiqtjus. 

 Leidy: Proceedings Academy Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 1856, 165; Holmes' Post-pliocene 

 Fossils of South Carolina, 1860, 117, PI. xxiv., figs. 5-7. 



The collection of Ashley fossils, of the Pacific Guano Company, contains many 

 remains of a Manatee, consisting mainly of rib fragments, mutilated vertebrse, and 

 fragments of skulls, but none are sufiiciently characteristic to determine positively 

 whether they indicate a species difi"erent from its existing representative living 

 further south. Among the specimens there are four which consist of that part of 

 the skull formed by the summit of the occiput and the contiguous portions of the 

 parietals. These, though exhibiting trifling variation, are yet sufficiently like the 

 corresponding portion of the skull of our recent Manatee to belong to the same 

 species. 



A tooth of a Manatee from the same locality described and figured by me in 

 Holmes' Post-pliocene Fossils of South Carolina, is sufficiently distinctive to pertain 

 to a species diff'erent from our recent one, and it is probable that the bones above 

 indicated may belong to the same species as the fossil tooth, with which they 

 accord better in their larger size. 



ROSMARUS. 



ROSMARCS OBESUS. 



s. Trichecus rosmarus. 

 The present southern limit of the Walrus on our coast is the northern part of 

 Labrador. A century ago the animal existed among the Magdalen Islands in the 

 Bay of St. Lawrence, and even as far south as Sable Island, Nova Scotia; but in 

 these localities it has been completely exterminated. Remains, discovered at dif- 

 ferent points along the coast, have been described or referred to, indicating the 

 further extension of the animal at an earlier period as far south as Virginia. 



