MISSISSIPPI.
(Map [19].)
1. Natchez, Adams County.—In 1849 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. IV, p. 182), Dr. Leidy wrote that there was in the collection of the Academy a tooth of a tapir discovered by Dr. M. W. Dickeson near Natchez. It had been found in association with remains of the mastodon and the horse Equus americanus (=E. complicatus). The tooth was pronounced a lower molar of the left side, apparently the third milk molar, and was referred to Tapirus americanus fossilis; that is, it was looked upon as a fossil tooth of the existing South American tapir. The molar was mentioned by Leidy in 1860 (Holmes’s “Post-Pliocene Fossils of South Carolina,” p. 106). The writer has seen this tooth in the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia.
In 1852 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. VI, p. 148), Leidy called the attention of the Academy to a fragment of a left lower jaw with 2 teeth of a tapir found in the Pleistocene near Natchez and sent to Leidy by the geologist B. L. C. Wailles. It was referred to Tapirus haysii. This specimen was figured and described by Leidy in 1860 (Holmes’s “Post-Pliocene Fossils of South Carolina,” p. 107, plate XVII, figs. 4, 5). Wailles mentioned this jaw in his work (Agric. Geol. Mississippi, 1854, p. 285), and stated that it was found in a ravine on Pine Ridge, which runs through townships 7 and 8, range 3 west, about 6 miles north of Natchez.
In a list (furnished by Dr. Joseph Leidy) of fossil mammals found in the Pleistocene of Mississippi, 2 species of tapirs are included, viz, Tapirus americanus (=T. terrestris) and T. haysii (Wailles, op. cit., p. 286; Hilgard, Agric. Geol. Mississippi, 1860, p. 196). The associated species will be listed on page [391].