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in Yorkshire, or the caves of Gower, near Swansea, in South Wales, and especially 
the celebrated Kent’s Hole in Devonshire, at Torquay, which has yielded to the 
researches of Mr. Pengelly and others upwards of fifty thousand bones. Such too 
were King Arthur’s and the Doward Caves—at least those that occupy a height of 
from 400 to 500 feet above the river. Of the lower level caves I will speak just now 
The bones of the herbivorous animals are all more or less gnawed and bitten, 
and the remains of such destructive carnivores as were the cave lion and hyena 
are found in considerable numbers associated with the bones of the herbivores, and 
prove beyond a doubt, that the mammoths, reindeer, bison, and rhinoceros fell a 
prey to those destructive carnivores, and that their carcases were dragged piece- 
meal into their dens. I shall allude to-day to the consideration of the contents of 
these Wye Caves, and these only, inasmuch as they are somewhat remarkable for 
the abundance of the remains of the long-haired rhinoceros (R. tichorrhinus) whose 
bones are found in great numbers in Northen Russia and Siberia associated with 
the relics of the mammoth or long-haired elephant. 
Finally I shall allude, briefly, to the great changes which have taken place 
in the geographical and geological conditions of this country since the time these 
caves were tenanted by wild animals, and to the evidences of the coexistence of 
man with the mammoth. First with regard to the remains of the herbivores 
found in the Wye Caverns. We have the remains of mammoths, young and old, 
from the great fore-arm in the possession of Mr. Bannerman, which was 
evidently dragged in by either a cave lion or a hyena, and hidden in a chink in 
the limestone rock for a future gnawing, down to the teeth of a young calf 
mammoth, several of which were found in King Arthur’s den. The mammoth is 
only one of about some 40 species of fossil elephants known to palzontologists, and 
you are aware that there are now only two species of existing elephants. It is 
found abundantly in caves and ancient river deposits throughout England and 
Wales, and was once very abundant in Russia, Siberia, and Germany. It has been 
found in Siberia with its flesh preservedin ice, and clad in hair and wool with a 
long shaggy mane. It grew to a larger size than any living elephant, and the food 
on which it fed has been preserved in its stomach. It fed on the Arctic wllow 
and birch and pine shoots. The store of fossil ivory furnished by this now extinct 
animal in the North of Russia is extraordinary, and not very long ago the Illustrated 
London News had an engraving of a room full of its gigantic curved tusks at the 
London Docks. Its teeth are as well known as the Gryphcea incurva of the Lias, 
and some of them have been exhibited to-day. Those who will take the trouble 
to examine the collections at the Gloucester Museum and at Mr. Bannerman’s will 
see from the teeth of the rhinoceros, young and old, how numerous the individuals 
of this animal must have been on those ancient lands of the Forest of Dean. On 
the banks of the ancient Wye it formed the principal prey of the hyenas, and a 
vast number of its bones have been disinterred from the caves in the shape of 
splinters and gnawed fragments, the enamel of the teeth being too hard even for 
the digestion of a hyena. The quantity of individual headsof th’s animal dragged 
in must have been very great. So far as my knowledge extends all the teeth we 
have discovered in the Wye caves belong to the rhinoceros tichorrhinus (strongly 
