1922] Kellogg: Pinnipeds from Miocene and Pleistocene Deposits 49 



that walruses were ever present in that part of Russia. In this con- 

 nection it is well to point out that Tchihatcheff 25 erroneously credits 

 Lankester 26 with recording remains of Trichccoclon from Bounarhaschi, 

 Giaour Ko'i, Turkey. No additional information regarding this inter- 

 esting fossil walrus was recorded until 1907. In that year Rutten 27 

 described and figured a nearly complete cranium which had been 

 picked up opposite the village of Breskens in the West Scheldt, Zee- 

 land, Holland, by a fisherman. Rutten found, when he compared 

 cross sections of the tusk of this skull to those of tusks hitherto referred 

 to as Trichccoclon, that they were unquestionably the same form. 

 However, Rutten, following Lankester, 28 considered that the genus 

 Trichccoclon was identical with the living walrus and he threw some 

 question on the validity of the studies of Van Beneden. The figures 

 and descriptions given by Rutten, however, do not warrant his con- 

 clusions on the distinctness of the genus Trichecodon. 



During the Pleistocene period, walruses occurred as far south 

 as South Carolina in North America, and in Europe they are known 

 from Germany, from the Antwerp basin in Belgium, and from France. 

 Some writers have attempted to explain their presence in that latitude 

 as the result of herds of walruses floating down from the arctic basin 

 on immense floes which landed them in the lowlands of the places 

 mentioned. 



It is within comparatively few years that the majority of Pleisto- 

 cene walrus skulls have been unearthed. The remains which have 

 been described from the Pleistocene thus far appear to differ but little 

 from the existing species. This may be due in a large measure to the 

 fragmentary nature of the material upon which accounts of the dis- 

 covery of fossil walrus are based, or to the fact that aquatic mammals 

 are not so quickly modified as are their terrestrial relatives. No 

 evidence in favor of the existence of walruses on the Pacific coast of 

 North America or of Asia during Tertiary times has as yet been found. 

 The first authentic account of the presence of a Quaternary walrus 

 in Europe appears to be that of Zimmerman, 29 who reported the find- 

 ing of two skulls, one belonging to the polar bear, Ursus maritimus, 



25 Tchihatcheff (Chikhaehev, P. A.), Asie Mineure, description physique de cette 

 contree, pt. 4, Geologie, vol. 3, pp. 175-176. Paris, 1869. 



26 Lankester, E., op. ext., p. 227. (Erroneous reference.) 



27 Rutten, L., op. oit., figs. 1, 3 and 5. 



28 Lankester, R., Trans. Linn. Soc. London (2), vol. 2, p. 213, pi. 22, fig's. 1-7. 

 1882. 



29 Zimmerman, K. G. H., Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, p. 73. Stuttgart, 

 1845. 



