66 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



bones of other animals, which the late Sir Charles Lyell 

 ("Principles of Geology," vol. iii. p. 326, 6th ed.) arranges 

 in the following order, according to their abundance. He 

 begins with those of the red deer (Cervus clapJius) as most 

 numerous, and then follow those of the ox, the bear, the 

 horse, the sheep, the dog, the hare, the fox, the wolf, and 

 lastly the cat. These marl deposits are comparatively of 

 recent date, and the bones brought to light are all of animals 

 now existing, or which have become extinct by human 

 agency, as the bear and the wolf. 1 



A long period of geological time must have elapsed 

 between the Pleistocene deposits of brick-earth and gravel, 

 in which the bones of the Wild Cat have been found in 

 England intermingled with the osseous remains of the great 

 cave bear, cave lion, cave hyena, and other extinct mammals, 

 and the marl deposits in which we find the Wild Cat ol 

 Scotland. Not a single bone of any carnivore, recent or 

 extinct, has been discovered in any of the earlier geological 

 formations, and not even, as far as I am aware, in any of the 

 great peat -bogs or morasses. Professor J. Geikie ("The 

 Great Ice Age," p. 347) says that nowhere in the recent deposits 

 in Scotland have we any trace of the great pachyderms so 

 frequently met with in certain river gravels of England and 

 the Continent ; and Professor Boyd Dawkins, British Post- 

 Glacial Mammals (" Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society," vol. xxv., i 869), states that he "knows of no evidence 

 that post-glacial mammals ever existed in Scotland, with the 

 exception of three remains of the mammoth and two of the 

 reindeer. Remains of other animals, such as the urus, red- 

 deer, and the like, have been obtained from marl beds 

 underlying the peat, or from alluvials which are prehistoric 

 but not post-glacial." 



Scotland, says Sir Charles Lyell (" Antiquity of Man," p. 

 274), "was submerged 2000 feet, and other parts of the British 

 Isles 1300 feet. The Scotch Lowlands would therefore 

 emerge from the glacial wave long after the middle and southern 



1 I have been unable to trace the present whereabouts of these bones. On 

 my applying to Sir Leonard Lyell, he answered : " I certainly do not remember 

 having seen any fossil bones of the cat from the marl. There are only a few 

 skulls and antlers of deer and ox remaining. These are in a most friable condition, 

 and I had much difficulty in preserving them." 



