THE FOSSIL SLOTH AT BIG BOXE CAVE, TEXX. 



Ot 



Arundinaria tecta, hazel ; fragments of clay, coprolites, and bits of 

 charcoal, mentioned above, as belonging to Layer i, and, second, 

 objects artificially intruded into Layer 2. 



Objects of Later Age Than the Bones, or of Doubtful 

 Antiquity. 



The hoarding habit of the underground rat had helped our inves- 

 tigation at Big Bone cave, but his burrowing perplexed and vexed 

 us, confronting us with one of the dangers that often threaten exact 

 observation in caves. The slowly formed accumulation of dry ex- 

 crement had been undermined and disturbed by the tunneling of 

 its makers against the right and left walls, where several rat holes 

 were revealed by a variation in the texture of the neighboring 

 layer. Pushed and wadded into these burrows (see Fig. 15) we 



FlC. 15 (x Yo ). — Specimens of displaced rubbish found stuffed into and filling the rat 

 holes. I, 2 and 3. Burnt sticks, pieces of charred cane, Arundinaria tecta, and charred 

 hazel twig, Corylus americana, representing the ends of burnt-out torches cast away by 

 white men or Indians, often found at a greater depth in the layer than the sloth bones, 

 having been intruded into the burrows from the surface by small animals. 



