176 Rev. Mr. Buckland’s Account of Fossil Teeth and (Serr. 
before the period of the introduction of the mud. Should it turn 
out that since this period the cave has been accessible to foxes 
and weasels, it is possible that some of the birds also may have 
been introduced by them. The evidence of this, however, rests 
on a fact not yet carefully ascertained, viz. whether the bones in 
question were buried, like those of the extinct animals, beneath 
the mud, or lay on its surface; the state of one of the ravens’ 
bones, containing stalagmite in its central cavity, seems to indi- 
cate high antiquity; and the quarryman, who was the first to 
enter the cave, assured me, that he has never seen a single bone 
of any kind on the surface, nor without digging into the sub- 
stance of the mud. 
As ruminating animals form the ordinary food of beasts of 
prey, it is not surprising that their remains should occur in such 
abundance in the cave; but it is not so obvious by what means 
the bones and teeth of the elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopota- 
mus, were conveyed thither. On the one hand, the cave is in 
eneral of dimensions so contracted (often not exceeding three 
feet in diameter), that it is impossible that living animals of these 
species could have found an entrance, or the entire carcases of 
dead ones been floated into it; moreover, had the bones been 
washed in, they would probably have been mixed with pebbles 
and rounded equably by friction, which they are not: on the 
other hand, it is foreign to the habits of the hyena to prey on 
the larger pachydermata, their young perhaps excepted. No 
other solution of the difficulty presents itself to me, than that the 
remains in question are those of individuals that died a natural 
death; for though an hyzna would neither have had strength to 
kill a living elephant or rhinoceros, or to drag home the entire 
carcase 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, amidst the remains of so many hun- 
dred animals, not a single skeleton of any kind has been found 
entire, we see an obvious answer in the power and known habit 
of hyznas to devour the bones of their prey ; and the gnawed 
fragments on the one hand, and album grecum on the other, 
afford double evidence of their having largely gratified this 
natural propensity: the exception of the teeth and numerous 
small bones of the lower joints and extremities that remain 
unbroken, as having been too hard and solid to afford induce- 
ment for mastication, is entirely consistent with this solution. 
And should it be further asked, why we do not find at least the 
entire skeleton of the one or more hyznas that died last, and 
left no survivors to devour them; we find a sufficient reply to 
this question, in the circumstance of the probable destruction of 
the last individuals by the diluvian waters : on the rise of these 
had there been any hyznas in the den, they would have rushed 
