MICHIGAN.
(Map [36].)
1. Belding, Ionia County.—So far as the writer knows, no species of peccary has been found in the State of Michigan, except at Belding. The remains are in the palæontological collection of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, and belong to the species Platygonus compressus Le Conte. The remains are said to consist of bones of 5 individuals; and Mr. N. A. Wood, preparator at the university, informed the writer there are 294 bones. The skull of one of the 5 individuals was missing when the collection was made. The skeletons were found in a peat-swamp, in 1877, and were sent to Professor Alexander Winchell by Mr. A. Tuttle. A skull belonging to this collection was described in 1903 (Jour. Geology, vol. XI, p. 777, figs. 1–4) by Mr. George Wagner.
It seems probable that there, as in two or three other known cases, a herd of these animals, asleep together, had succumbed to rigorous weather, probably to a winter blizzard.
Belding is situated on Flat River, a tributary of Grand River. It lies close to a part of the Charlotte moraine system, thought to be correlated with the Valparaiso system. These peccaries could not have lived in that region until after the Wisconsin ice had retired into Lake Michigan, or nearly so. It is more probable that they lived there long after this retirement, at a time when the climate had become much warmer.