82 Dr Knox on the Habits of the Hyaena. 



should be glad to offer this explanation in support of the sup- 

 posed habits of the Kirkdale hyaenas, but, unfortunately, the 

 antediluvians had not discovered Britain, which, though a 

 fine country, and full of nature's finest productions, did not 

 boast of them as tenants. 



4. Hyaenas do not congregate ; they are solitary. Conse- 

 quently, all that Mr Buckland has said about a den ofhyamas, 

 is simply the work of the imagination heated by a false theory. 



5. The young of the hyaena follow the dam early into the 

 field, so that the quantity of food required to be carried to 

 them must be small. 



6. I do not believe that hyaenas reside in caverns ; they arc 

 too timid and distrustful of every thing. The almost inac- 

 cessible parts of the country to which they retire during the 

 day-time, must have been visited by very few travellers. I 

 cannot say that I have ever discovered hyamas in dens, though 

 I have often been present when they were roused from their 

 lurking-places. 



These are all the observations I intend offering on this sub- 

 ject. It probably did not merit even these, since, as I former- 

 ly hinted*, the habits of modern and antediluvian hyaenas 

 might be entirely different, as they belong to different species. 

 But however this may be, none who has inspected the Kirk- 

 dale bones, deposited in the Hunterian museum, can hesitate 

 for a moment in declaring, that these bones have never been 

 fractured by hyaenas ; they have been broken by great external 

 violence, and not by the agency of the teeth of living animals ; 

 and they do not differ in any respect from the bones found at 

 Oreston and elsewhere, which bear no such marks of violence. 

 It seems indeed strange that the agency of wild animals 

 should be resorted to in explaining the osteological collection 

 of the Kirkdale cave, when so many other collections are al- 

 lowed to have been formed in an entirely different manner. 

 But the truth is, that we have evidence in the nature of the 

 relics themselves, subversive of Mr Buckland's speculations 

 on these subjects ; 1. The bones found in the cave of Kirk- 

 dale do not bear the marks of having been broken by hyaenas, 

 but of having been dashed to pieces, and exposed to the ac- 

 tion of water ; 2. They belong to animals of a different species 



* Wcrncrian Transactions, vol. v. 



