174 <JN RAINS CAVE, LONGCLIFFE, DERBYSHIRE. 



Of these, the bones of the ox — the small British variety, Bos 

 longifrons — were most numerous. Next in order were those which 

 Mr. Dawkins cautiously identified as "sheep or goat." The 

 impossibility of distinguishing between most of the bones of these 

 two ruminants is well known ; but in several instances, he was 

 able to definitely assign skulls, or fragments of skulls, to one or 

 other of them.* The stag and the fox, as was to be expected, 

 were fairly well represented, but their bones in point of numbers 

 follow the above at a long distance. Those of the horse, and 

 particularly the hog, were decidedly scarce ; the latter, however, 

 were rather plentiful in the superficial deposits excavated in 1888. 

 Equally scarce were those of the dogf and the badger, and still 

 more so, those of the wolf and the hedgehog. All the world over 

 the dog has been so frequently found buried with his master or 

 mistress, that it is quite likely some of these animals were 

 thus introduced into tliis cave. The bones of the water-rat were 

 plentiful almost everywhere in the cave, in some spots the soil 

 consisting of little else besides. The bones of this rodent are also 

 almost invariably present in the barrows of the district. Did 

 these animals make these retreats their homes, or were they 

 dragged thither and devoured by carnivorous animals who preyed 

 on them ? To judge from the sound condition of the bones 

 (even the smallest and most delicate), the former is true ; and if 

 so, the presence of these bones must be, as the late Mr. Rooke 

 Pennington suggested, "a sure sign of a great change in the 

 physical condition of the country." 



The presence of the urus is very interesting. Although the 

 remains of this large animal are frequent in Pleistocene deposits, 

 they are very rare in those of later times. Indeed, there seem to 

 be only two recorded cases, besides the present one — Cissbury, 

 with Neolithic remains, and Barton Mere, near Bury St. 

 Edmunds, with those of the Bronze age. The Rains Cave 



* Two skulls of sheep (both found in 1888) are tolerably perfect — the one 

 horned and the other not. The most noticeable feature about them is their 

 small size compared with those of the present. 



t No perfect skull of dog was found, but all the lower jaws indicate an 

 animal about the size of a retriever. 



