INTRODUCTION, vil 



the recent or living species of the coast, — two are found only at the south of this, and two 

 are extinct. Of the vertebrates, from the same bed, the tapir, peccary, raccoon, opossum, 

 deer, musk-rat, rabbit, beaver, and elk have still their living representatives, generically, if 

 not specifically; and even of the identity of species there seems to be no doubt, as no anato- 

 mical differences can be discerned. Two of these species, like the mollusca just alluded 

 to, no longer live in South Carolina; the tapir and peccary are only found in South America 

 and Mexico; the musk-rat, elk and beaver, though extinct on the Atlantic coast, are still 

 living in the interior of the country. And though it has been acknowledged that the masto- 

 don, megatherium, elephant, glyptodon, and two species of Equine genera, etc., are entirely 

 extinct, yet the discoveries made of the remains even of some of these, would indicate that 

 they still existed at a period so recent, that, in the language of Prof. Leicly, "it is probable 

 the red man witnessed their declining existence." 



The peccary, or Mexican hog, an animal common in Mexico, is not indigenous to the 

 Atlantic United States; but his bones have been found associated with human remains in 

 ■caves used as cemeteries by the Aboriginees.* "A tomb in the pity of Mexico," according 

 to Clavigero,f " was found to contain the bones of an entire mammoth, the sepulchre 

 appearing to have been formed expressly for their reception." And " Latrobe relates that 

 during the prosecution of some excavations, near the city of Tezcuco, one of the ancient roads 

 or causeways was discovered, and on one side, only three feet below the surface, in what 

 may have been the ditch of the road, there lay the entire skeleton of a mastodon. It bore 

 every appearance of having been coeval with the period when the road was used." 



Again I extract from Prof. Leidy's letter:^ 



"The early existence of the genera to which our domestic animals belong, has been 

 adduced as presumptive evidence of the advent of man at a more remote period than is 

 usually assigned. It must be remembered, however, even at the present time, that of 

 some of these genera only a few species are domesticated: thus of the existing six species 

 of Equus (Horse) only two have ever been freely brought under the dominion of man. 



"The Horse did not exist in America at the time of its discovery by Europeans; but its 

 remains, consisting chiefly of molar teeth, have now been so frequently found in association 

 with those of extinct animals, that it is generally admitted once to have been an aboriginal 

 inhabitant. When I first saw examples of these remains I was not disposed to view them 

 as relics of an extinct species; for although some presented characteristic differences from 

 those of previously known species, others were undistinguishable from the corresponding 

 parts of the domestic horse, and among them were intermediate varieties of form and size. 

 The subsequent discovery of the remains of two species of the closely allied extinct genus 

 Hipparion, in addition to the discovery of remains of two extinct equine genera of an earlier 



* Bradford's American Antiquities, p. 31. 



f Bradford's American Antiquities, p. 221. 



\ Nott and Gliddon, Indigenous races of the earth; p. xviii. 



