314 Supplement to the Comparative Estimate 



enumerated to show that the hyaenas inhahited this cave, and were 

 the agents by which the teeth and bones of the other animals were 

 there collected *." On these inferences, Mr. Penn remarks, " thus 

 thatmostcomplete and satisfactory chainof consistent circumstantial 

 evidence, stated in the first instance, does not appear to connect 

 any thing more than the general conclusion that the animals lived 

 in Yorkshire, with the premises that their remains are now found 

 there;" and he compares the process by which those inferences are 

 obtained, to that by which the mineral geology, peremptorily in- 

 ferred from the spherical figure of the earth that " it really was 

 once fluid\." 



Our author then proceeds to adduce several insurmountable 

 objections, to which he contends that the hypothesis of the hyama's 

 den is liable, which we shall briefly recapitulate. 



1. It has omitted to inquire whether the carcasses of those 

 animals being moveable bodies, might not have been removed to 

 their actual stations ? Whether any power capable of removing 

 them exists in nature ? Whether such power has ever been 

 brought, into actual operation ? 



2. The cave at Kirkdale contains innumerable bones, not 

 only of the larger quadrupeds, but also of water rats; all of which 

 animals were, by the hypothesis, imported by the hyamas for the 

 purposes of food. Now the bones of the larger animals resisted 

 the teeth of the hyecnas, and were only gnaived, by them ; but the 

 same cannot be argued of the innumerable bones of water rats 

 which equally remains. " The presence of their minute and mas- 

 ticable bones, therefore refutes the cause assigned for the presence 

 of the large and unmasticable bones, for no one would conclude that 

 the hyaenas spared the bones of rats, merely because they could not 

 masticate those of elephants. Certainly not, replies the hypo- 

 thesis, ' but in masticating the bodies of these small animals with 

 their coarse conical teeth, many bones, and fragments of bones, 

 would be pressed outwards through their lips, and fall neglected to 

 the ground J'. 



" This retort is indeed quite unexpected ; yet surely, if we ever 

 witnessed the fate of a mouse in a cat's mouth, we are perfectly 

 competent to judge whether so small and friable a mouthful as the 

 body of a, water rat within the jaws of a hungry hycena, would be 

 likely, notwithstanding the coarse conical teeth of the latter, to 

 eject any bones or fragments of bones to testify of its fate;" and 

 even if it did, Mr. Penn insists on the improbability that they 

 should have remained neglected, in the presence of so many hyaenas, 

 young and old, as the hypothesis assumes to have co-existed in 

 the cave, taking into the account the excessive greediness for 

 bones, which the hypothesis tells us they are remarkable for. 



* Reliquiae Diluviance, p. 21. t Comparative Estimate, p. 34, §c. 



X Reliqv.ke Diluviance, p. 34. 



