Fossil Bones of Saint- Privat'd'AUier. 283 



undertook, could without danger be continued, a still greater 

 number of bones would be discovered. 



" From the works published during late years on certain an-, 

 alogous associations, we are enabled to concisely explain how 

 the remains of animals, differing from each other as much in 

 their organization as in their habits, should be found crowded 

 together in so small a space. It will be therefore sufficient for 

 me to avail myself of some of the facts which Dr Buckland 

 has related, in his Reliquice Diluviancc, upon the habits of mo^ 

 dern hyenas ; taking, however, into consideration, that a dimi- 

 nished stature, and other anatomical considerations, would in- 

 duce us to regard them as less ferocious than fossil hyenas. 



" They do not dig for themselves dens, says Dr Buckland, 

 but retire into holes or into the lurking-places of wolves. They 

 live principally on the flesh of animals naturally dead. It is 

 in the night that they seek their prey, and that they carry off 

 even skeletons, the flesh of which the vultures have picked 

 clean. Wherever a dead camel or any other animal is thrown, 

 they collect in troops of six, eight, or sometimes more, and, 

 acting in concert, sometimes drag him to a considerable dis- 

 tance. The strength of the hyena''s jaw is such, that in attack- 

 ing a dog, he begins by biting off his leg at a single snap. 

 Hyenas have the custom of devouring in a great measure the 

 bones of the animals of which they make their prey ; they 

 afterwards collect the remains of them round their haunt, 

 whence it happens, that in a mass of this kind, we cannot col- 

 lect a skeleton or even a single bone that is entire, with the 

 exception of teeth, and the small joint bones, or the inferior 

 extremities, which are either too hard for them, or are deprived 

 of marrow. Lastly, it appears, that the carcases of hyenas are 

 in their turn devoured by such of their own kind as survive, &c. 



" In reconciling these facts with the different circumstances 

 which the site of Saint-Privat presents, it becomes easy to de- 

 cide upon the causes of the accumulation of these bones in the 

 volcanic scoriae. We may conceive, in fact, that in a country 

 where the structure of the rocks is little favourable to the na^ 

 tural formation of caverns, carnivorous animals have sought 

 in this aggregate deposit of a feeble consistence the kind of shel- 

 ter which they required. Hence it is extremely probable that 



