While the materials so far discovered do not enable us to distinguish the deer remains found about Charleston from Odocoileus virginianus, it is not improbable that they belonged in reality to another species, some perhaps to the Floridan Pleistocene species O. sellardsiæ.
Antlers of the white-tailed or Virginia deer are common in the collections about Charleston. In the Scanlan collection are bases of antlers of adult bucks and two simple spikes of young deer. One base is different from the others in being much flattened in one border, probably the one on which the first tine arose. It is possible that it represents a distinct species.
2. Darlington, Darlington County.—In 1848, Tuomey (Rep. Geol. South Carolina, pp. 177–180) stated that on the land of a Rev. Mr. Campbell, somewhere in the vicinity of Darlington, he had found fragments of the horns of a deer. He regarded the beds as belonging to the Pliocene. In the neighborhood, in a similar deposit, had been found molars of Mastodon maximus (=Mammut americanum). Both species may belong to the early Pleistocene.
FLORIDA.
(Map [22].)
1. Pablo Beach, Duval County.—Dr. Sellards (8th Ann. Rep. Florida Geol. Surv., p. 106) reported remains of Odocoileus found at station 120 of the Inland Waterway Canal, about 5 miles south of Pablo Beach. Further mention is made of this on page [374].
2. Neals, Alachua County.—In his eighth report (page 94) Sellards stated that at Neals, near Newberry, teeth had been collected which probably belonged to a species of Odocoileus. These were found while phosphate rock was being mined; but they, with a tooth of a tapir and one of Equus littoralis, doubtless belong to the early Pleistocene.
3. Archer, Alachua County.—In 1896 Leidy (Trans. Wagner Free Instit., vol. IV, p. X), in a note on the species of vertebrates found in the Alachua clays, included among these a tapir, a mastodon, and a megatherium. In his list furnished for Dr. W. H. Dall’s report (Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv. No. 84, p. 129), is included Cervus virginianus?. The tapir, the deer, and the megatherium have been regarded as Pleistocene fossils which became mixed with those of the Pliocene. For that reason Odocoileus is here credited to Archer. See also Sellards’s conclusion (6th Ann. Rep. Florida Geol. Surv., p. 162). It is not certain exactly where the species above named were found. One locality mentioned by Leidy is 10 miles south of Archer, now Williston; another is 10 miles north of the same town, now Newberry. For the geological age of the species found at Archer, consult page 375.
4. Ocala, Marion County.—From a fissure in a limestone rock at Ocala, Sellards (8th Ann. Rep., p. 103) secured some remains of Odocoileus, but it was not determined to what species they belonged.
5. Dunnellon, Marion County.—The writer (8th Ann. Rep. Florida Geol. Surv., p. 43, plate VIII, figs. 3–5) described some teeth of a deer found near Dunnellon, in the “Cullens river mine.” These were referred provisionally to the species or subspecies now living in that region, Odocoileus osceola.