74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stealthy foxes and wild-cats, and the larger by grizzly and brown bears 

 and packs of wolves. The stillness of night was from time to time 

 broken by the weird laughter of the spotted hyena and by the roar 

 that proclaimed the presence of the king of beasts. Otters pursued 

 their finny prey in the Thames at Grays Thurrock, and at Ilford bea- 

 vers were to be seen disporting themselves round their wonderful habi- 

 tations, and vanishing beneath the surface as if by magic at the splash 

 caused by the bulky form of the hippopotamus as he plunged into the 

 water. 



Nor are we without a clew as to the vegetation then covering the 

 district, since the present flora of this country arrived here at a geo- 

 logical period long before the time under discussion. "We may there- 

 fore complete our ideal by picturing to ourselves oaks, ashes, and yews 

 among the important trees in the forest, while the thickets that shel- 

 tered such a strange assemblage of animals did not differ in any im- 

 portant particular from those in Britain at the present time. Then, as 

 now, dark Scotch firs clustered on the sands and gravels covering the 

 heights of Kent, and alders and willows marked the water-courses of 

 the low-lying district of Essex, until the view was closed northward 

 by the black pines covering the answering heights of Havering and of 

 Brentwood. We should alone miss the elms now so marked a feature 

 in the landscape. 



Such as these were the surroundings of the lion when he first ap- 

 peared in Britain, huge in size and without a rival among the lower 

 animals. The central figure, however, in the picture is proved by 

 recent discoveries to have been man. Not only have flint implements 

 of the ordinary river-drift type been obtained from the brick-earths 

 of Crayford along with remains of the animals above mentioned, but 

 Mr. Flaxman Spurred has been able to fix the place where the hunter 

 sat on the ancient bank of the Thames and fashioned the blocks of 

 flint to his various needs. The river-drift hunter, armed with his 

 roughly chipped stone implements, doubtless had great difficulty in 

 making good his place in the struggle for existence among the beasts 

 of prey then in the valley of the Thames, and sometimes, when he 

 had the chance, he would be likely to eat the lion, and at other times 

 the lion would certainly eat him. They must often have come into 

 contact when engaged in the pursuit of the same animals. 



The climate at this time in Southern Britain is proved to have been 

 in the main temperate, by the presence of animals such as the horse, 

 bison, and rhinoceros. A temperate fauna was then in possession of 

 the land, although a few Arctic stragglers, such as the musk-sheep, 

 were also present. The hippopotamus still haunted the banks of the 

 Thames, and can hardly be supposed to have been able to endure the 

 winter cold of the region now inhabited by the musk-sheep, any more 

 than that animal could be expected to enjoy the heat of the summers 

 in the present home of the hippopotamus. 



