FOSSILS. 219 



victims of superior strength. It has thus been con- 

 cluded that, of the English caves containing animal 

 remains, there are two kinds — one in which the 

 gnawed, and fractured bones of animals, killed 

 before the flood, are now found ; and another, in 

 which more or less perfect skeletons, and single 

 bones of animals in a tolerably complete state are 

 observed. Caves of this last description correspond, 

 in the nature of their contents, with diluvial deposits 

 in other counties ; from which entire bones of the 

 same species of animals as have been found in both 

 kinds of caves have been collected. If such a dis- 

 tinction be admissible; our neighbourhood fur- 

 nishes examples of each description. Professor 

 Buckland was the first person who established, by 

 logical deduction, the fact, of caves having been 

 occupied before the flood by carnivorous animals, 

 and employed as dens, in which they devoured their 

 prey ; his reasonings we deem conclusive, and, taking 

 them as the standard by which to judge of other in- 

 stances, we are led to believe that the Oreston caves, 

 on the one hand, exhibit no proofs of having been 

 used as dens ; while, on the other, the Yealm Bridge 

 cave displays unerring marks in the affirmative. 

 The celebrated Kirkdale cave was that from which 

 the Professor drew his conclusions ; the bones were 

 in fragments, as if splintered by carnivorous teeth, 

 gnawed, their extremities, which are softest and 

 most nutritious, gone, small bones perfect, teeth 

 more numerous than remains of animals — " grascum 

 album" abundant, (but this could be equally derived 

 from dead bodfes) certain fragments highly polished 

 on one side, as if by the constant passage of hyaena's 

 feet over them ; hysena's bones broken and gnawed 

 equally with others ; an hyaena's skull exhibiting 

 marks of having been within the gripe of another of 

 these creatures, but healed by a process of nature ; 

 certain young bones and teeth, bones and teeth of 

 very old individuals, such as we may suppose retired 

 to their dens to die, or yielded themselves up, like 



