By Mr. Cunnington. 135 



entered also into the series of British Pliocene hoofed Mammalia. 

 To these must be added the Musk Ox, which was not known as 

 a British fossil until last year. 



" The Carnivora, organized to enjoy a life of rapine at the ex- 

 pense of the vegetable feeders, to restrain their undue increase, and 

 abridge the pangs of the maimed and sickly, were duly adjusted in 

 numbers, size, and ferocity, to the fell task assigned to them in the 

 organic economy of the Pre- Adamite World. Besides a British 

 Tiger of larger size than that of Bengal, there existed a stranger 

 feline animal (the Machairodus), which from the great length and 

 sharpness of its sabre-shaped canines, was probably the most fero- 

 cious and destructive of its carnivorous family. 



*' Of the smaller felines, we recognize the remains of a Leopard 

 or large Lynx, and of a Wild Cat. Troops of Hyenas, larger than 

 the fierce Corcuta of South Africa, which they much resembled, 

 crunched the bones of the carcases relinquished by the nobler 

 beasts of prey, and doubtless often themselves waged the war of 

 destruction on the feebler quadrupeds. 



" A savage Bear, surpassing in size the Ursus ferox of the Rocky 

 Mountains, found its hiding place, like the Hyena, in many of the 

 existing limestone caverns of England. 



" Wolves and Foxes, the Badger, the Otter, the Foumart, and 

 the Stoat, complete the category of the Carnivora of Britain." 



We will now speak more particulaily of the extinct animals 

 hitherto found in Wiltshire, remarking by the way, that although 

 our list is not a long one, other species will doubtless turn up, when 

 more attention is given to the subject. 



Are there no sporting gentlemen present willing to look after 

 such game ? 



First then the Mammoth. The distribution of this trijrantic 

 unimul is most abundant in the county. Cuvier was the first to 

 prove that it dift'ered specifically from the two recent species, viz. : 

 Elephas Indicus, and Elephas Africanus. This fact which was an- 

 nounced by Cuvier in 1796, was at the foundation of all his remark- 

 able discoveries. It opened to him, ho says, new views of the 

 theory of tlir; cartli, and induced liim to devote to this great work 



