1822.] Bones discovered in a Cave at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire. 175 
aquatic habit of the water rat would secure it from the hyenas. 
They might occasionally also have eaten mice, weasels, rabbits, 
foxes, wolves, and birds ; and in masticating the bodies of these 
small animals with their coarse conical teeth, many bones and 
fragments of bone would be pressed outwards through their lips, 
and fall neglected to the ground, 
The occurrence of birds’ bones may be explained by the pro- 
bability of the hyznas finding them dead, and taking them home, 
as usual, to eat in their den: and the fact, that four of the only 
five 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 wing of birds; the former affording an 
obstacle, and the latter no temptation to the hyenas to devour 
them. Two of the five bones here mentioned, in size and form, 
and the position of the points at the base of the quills, exactly 
yesemble the ulna of a raven; a third approaches as closely to 
the Spanish runt, which is one of the largest of the pigeon tribe; 
a fourth bone is the right ulna of a lark; and a fifth, the coracoid 
process of the right scapula of a small species of duck resem- 
‘bling the Anas sponsor, or summer duck.* 
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 spelzus of the 
caves of Germany, and of the largest Bengal tiger, it is more 
probable that the hyenas found their dead carcases and dragged 
them to the den, than that they were ever joint tenants of the 
same cavern. It is, however, obvious that they were all at the 
same time inhabitants of antediluvian Yorkshire. 
In the case of such minute and burrowing animals as the 
mouse and weasel, and, perhaps, the rabbit and fox, it is possi- 
ble that some of them may have crept into the cave by undisco- 
vered crevices, and there died since the stoppage of its mouth; 
and in such case their bones would have been found lying on the 
surface of the mud before it was disturbed by digging: as no 
observations were made in season as to this point, it must 
remain unsettled, till the opening of another cave may. give 
opportunity for more accurate investigation. This uncertainty, 
however, applies not to any of the extinct species, or to thie 
larger animals, whose habit it is not to burrow in the ground, 
‘nor even to those of the smaller ones, e. g. the water rat, frag- 
ments of whose bones and teeth are found imbedded in the 
-antediluvian stalagmite, and cemented by it both to the exterior 
and internal cavities of bones belonging to the hyenas and other 
extinct species, which, beyond all doubt, were lodged in the den 
' * For my knowledge of these and many other bones I have from Kirkdale, I am 
indebted to a careful examination and comparison of them made by Mr. Brooks, in his 
most valuable collection of osteological preparations. Mr. Clift also has kindly assisted 
me at the Royal College of Surgeons in furtherance of the same object. 
