VI. 



Recent Explorations of the Maltese and 

 Sicilian Caverns. 



SOME interesting progress has recently been made in investigating 

 the bone-caves of Malta and Sicily. It has long been a matter 

 of common belief that these islands are the remnants of one of the old 

 land barriers connecting Europe with Northern Africa during at least 

 part of the Pliocene and Pleistocene periods ; and a detailed study of 

 the animal remains met with in the fissures and caverns is thus one of 

 the foremost importance. Not only is it possible to recognise the 

 mingling of northern and southern animals, and the apparent effect of 

 isolation upon them before their complete extinction as the feeding- 

 area became more and more reduced by subsidence ; but it also seems 

 likely that some idea of the nature of recent physical changes in the 

 region in question can be obtained from a comparison of the sequence 

 of deposits in the various localities examined. The work in Malta 

 has been carried on by Mr. John H. Cooke, with the aid of a grant 

 from the Royal Society of London (7) ; the new researches in Sicily 

 are those of Dr. Hans Pohlig, based upon a large collection of bones 

 in the Palermo Museum from the Cavern of Pontale, at Carini(io). 



The bone-caves of Malta were discovered so long ago as the 

 middle of the seventeenth century (i), and they have long been well- 

 known through the explorations and researches of the late Rear- 

 Admiral Spratt (11), Professor Leith Adams (2-5), Dr. Hugh Falconer 

 (8), and Dr. George Busk (6). They have yielded some dwarf 

 elephants, described under the names of Elcphas melitensis, E. falconevi, 

 and E. mnaidviensis, and a dwarf hippopotamus [H. pentlandi). They 

 have also furnished evidence of a so-called gigantic dormouse [Myoxus 

 melitensis), some large land-tortoises (3, 4), and various birds (9), 

 Mr. Cooke's researches, therefore, are for the most part only an 

 independent verification of results already obtained ; but, at the 

 same time, he has succeeded in making one or two striking additions 

 to our knowledge of the extinct fauna in question. The principal 

 specimens obtained have been placed in the British Museum, and a 

 detailed report on these fossils by Mr. A. S. Woodward is appended 

 to Mr. Cooke's account of his results. 



Attention has been chiefiy confined to one cavern in tlie Plar 



