NEW YORK.
(Map [20].)
1. Rochester, Monroe County.—In 1889 (Trans. Wagner Inst. Sci., vol. II, pp. 33–40), Leidy described and figured a skull of Platygonus compressus, purchased of Ward’s Natural Science Establishment, at Rochester, and said to have been found in a gravel bank in a railroad excavation, a few miles from Rochester. This skull was a part of 2 incomplete skeletons found lying together.
The writer received word from Professor Henry L. Ward, director of the Milwaukee Public Museum, that he recollects that, when a small boy, about 1873 or 1874, he went with his father, Henry A. Ward, to some point on the New York Central Railroad, where peccary remains had been found. He thinks the place was at or near Pittsford. Dr. F. A. Lucas, director of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, then in the employ of the elder Ward, writes that the place was at Pittsford, and in a gravel bank being worked by the railroad company to obtain materials for a fill. The exact depth at which the bones were found is not recalled, but it was not great.
The locality, according to Fairchild’s plate 42 (Bull. 127, State Mus., New York), is on the predecessor of Irondequoit Bay, extending out from Lake Iroquois. The peccaries possibly lived rather early in the late Wisconsin stage; but more probably their time of existence was considerably later, when the climate had become milder.
2. Gainesville, Wyoming County.—From Mr. C. A. Hartnagel, assistant State geologist of New York, the writer received notice of the discovery, in 1914, of the remains of 2 peccaries at a point about one-third of a mile northwest of Gainesville. The remains consist of 2 nearly complete skulls, parts of 5 ribs, 2 scapulæ, 2 metacarpals, 1 innominate bone, 1 ilium, 1 radius, 1 ulna, and 2 tibiæ. These have been identified by Dr. John M. Clarke as belonging to Platygonus compressus.
The manner of burial of these peccaries is puzzling and interesting. They were found in a hill, or drumlin, which stands out on a plain of considerable extent and whose long axis runs north and south. The elevation is 1,625 feet above sea-level. The drumlin is about 600 feet long, about 300 feet wide, and 40 feet high. It is composed of sand, gravel, and stones up to a foot in diameter. The bones are said to have been discovered by a contractor who was removing sand and gravel. The bones were at the south end of the drumlin and buried in a considerable pocket of sand. Those reporting the position of the bones place them at least 10 feet from the surface, and perhaps as much as 30 feet. Mr. Hartnagel thinks it is almost necessary to suppose that the skeletons were there when the drumlin was built. To the writer it would appear still more difficult to explain how they happened to be there at that time.