Buckland's Reliquice Diluviana. 341 



The occurrence of birds' bones may be explained by the probability of 

 the hysnas finding the birds dead, and taking them home, as usual, to eat 

 «u their den : and the fact, that four of the only six bones of birds I have 

 seen from Kirkdale are those of the ulna, may have arisen from the position 

 of the quill-feathers on it, and the small quantity of fleshy matter that 

 exists on the outer extremity of the wings of birds, — the former affording 

 an obstacle, and the latter no temptation, to the hyaenas to devour them. 



With respect to the bear and tiger, the remains of which are extremely 

 rare, and of which the teeth that have been found indicate a magnitude 

 equal to the great ursus spelaeus of the caves of Germany, and of the largest 

 Bengal tiger, it is more probable that the hyaenas found their dead car- 

 casses, and drjigged them to the den, than that they were ever joint tenants 

 of the same cavern. It is, however, obvious that tlley were all at the same 

 time inhabitants of antediluvian Yorkshire. 



As ruminating animals form the ordinary food of beasts of prey, 

 it is not surprising they should abound in the Kiri<dale Cave ; but 

 it is not so obvious by what means the bones and teeth of the ele- 

 phant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus were conveyed thither. 

 Mr. B. suggests that these may perhaps be the remains of indivi- 

 duals that died a natural death ; for though a hysena would neither 

 have had strength to kill a living elephant or rhinoceros, or to drag 

 home the entire carcass of a dead one, yet he could carry away 

 piecemeal, or acting conjointly with others, fragments of the most 

 bulky animals that died in the course of nature, and thus introduce 

 them to the inmost recesses of his den. 



Should it be asked, why no entire skeleton has been found, we 

 find a reply in the habit of the hyana to devour the bones of his 

 prey, and the gnawed fragments and album grcEcum afford evidence of 

 such propensity having been gratified, though the latter is in much 

 less quantity than we should have expected to find it; but from 

 its want of aggregation when recent it would probably have been soon 

 disintegrated and trodden down, except in particular instances of 

 extreme constipation. The question which naturally suggests itself, 

 why we do not find at least the entire skeleton of the one or more 

 hyaenas that died last, and left no survivors to devour them, is, we 

 think, satisfactorily answered by our author, who ingeniously ob- 

 serves that the last individuals were probably destroyed by the 

 diluvian waters, on the rise of which they may be supposed to 

 have rushed out of their dens and fled for safety to the hills — that 

 they were extirpated by this catastrophe is shown by the discovery 

 of their bones in the diluvial gravel both of England and Germany. 



Having thus summed up our author's evidence in favour of the 

 Kirkdale Cave having been inhabited as a den by successive gene- 

 rations of hysenas, we shall not stop to consider the other hypo- 

 theses which may be suggested in reference to it ; but proceed to 

 some considerations which it suggests. In the first place, it appears 

 manifest, that the accumulation of bones must have gone on 

 through a long succession of years, while the animals in question 

 were natives of this country. Secondly, the general dispersion of 

 similar bones through the gravel of great part of the northern 

 hemisphere, shows that the period in which they inhabited these re- 

 gions immediately preceded the formation of this gravel, and tliat 



