HYANA SPELZA. 159 
more remarkable, the Hyena was represented in the an- 
cient Fauna of South America by a species which its dis- 
coverer, Dr. Lund, has termed Hyena neogea.* 
The following are some judicious remarks, by Sir 
Henry de la Beche, on the mode of observation to be pur- 
sued in the exploration of caverns in search of fossil re- 
mains. ‘An observer, after entering a cavern, may again 
return from it without the slightest suspicion that it is 
ossiferous, and yet the cave contain the abundant remains 
of animals. Many in our own country, which have fur- 
nished hundreds of bones and teeth of various mammi- 
ferous creatures to those who properly searched for them, 
have been visited from time immemorial by numbers who 
never observed a trace of such exuvie. Caverns are far 
more abundant in limestone rocks than in others ; and hence 
the frequent occurrence of stalactitical and stalagmitical 
matter in ossiferous caves, which often masks the organic 
riches beneath it.”....‘* When an observer discovers 
bones in a cavern, he should pay particular attention to 
their mode of occurrence. Let him make a complete 
section of the stalagmite, mud, silt, sands, or gravel, as 
the case may be, noting the depth of each different bed, 
and carefully abstract specimens from each before frag- 
ments of it become mingled with the others. He must 
be careful to mark whether different kinds of bones or 
teeth occur in particular beds, or are all mingled together. 
He should also make different sections of the cave at 
various points, particularly noting where or in what di- 
rections it may communicate with the surface, for caverns 
frequently lead to the surface in other places than their 
entrances, such places being filled with fallen rubbish. An 
observer should be particularly careful in ascertaining the 
* Blik paa Brasiliens Dyreverden, &c., in the Transactions of the Royal 
Academy of Copenhagen, vol. vii. 1841, pp 93, 94. 
