NEW YORK.
(Map [24].)
1. Ossining, Westchester County.—In 1859, Dr. Joseph Leidy (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. XI, p. 194) read a letter from Dr. G. J. Fisher, of Ossining (then Sing Sing), in which was reported the finding of an antler of a reindeer in that vicinity, in excavating a peat-bed, 6 feet from the surface. The peat-bed had an area of about an acre, was surrounded by high ground, and looked as if it had been the site of an ancient lake. It is to be regretted that the situation of the place was not more accurately given.
Woodworth (Bull. 84, New York State Mus., 1905, p. 187) remarked that he did not know the circumstances under which the reindeer remains had been found; but its occurrence there was consonant with his views of the non-submergence of the lower Hudson valley. On the other hand, there appears to be no good reason why the caribou might not have occupied that region step by step as the glacier retired, and have remained there long enough for its bones to become buried in mucks overlying the deposits laid down in the Hudson while it was at sea-level.
2. Racket River, St. Lawrence County.—In 1869 (Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. VII, p. 377), Leidy mentioned the occurrence of caribou (“Cervus tarandus”) remains at Racket River, basing his statement on a remark of S. L. Mitchill (Cat. Organ. Remains, 1826, p. 26). On the same page Leidy referred to Mitchill’s skull of the elk found at Racket River, and to De Kay’s figure of it. In De Kay’s description (Zool. N. Y. Mamm., p. 120) of the skull he stated that it bore a label in Mitchill’s handwriting purporting that the skull belonged to the reindeer. It looks, therefore, very much as if the crediting of the caribou to this locality is due to an error of identification on the part of Mitchill; on the other hand, it is barely possible that Mitchill had remains of both animals from the locality.