28 PROFESSOR T. MCKENNY HUGHES, M.A. 



Sir WARINQTON W. SMYTH. I have seen a pipe as large as this filled 

 up in two years. 



Professor HUGHES then replied, saying : A question has been raised 

 by Sir Warington Smyth as to how the bones got into the caverns. That, 

 question is one that ought to be asked with regard to each cave separately. 

 There is, first, the suggestion that the bones may have been washed in from 

 above. I have discussed this point (p. 14). Or the bones may have been 

 carried in by animals that inhabited the caves ; and then we have to con- 

 sider whether these caves were ever hyaena dens, whether the beasts of the 

 present day behave in the same way as those whose remains are found in 

 the caves appear to have done. Dr. Buckland found that they do. He 

 examined carefully the bones of the animals gnawed by hyaanas, and 

 found the marks of teeth on the bones so dealt with, and that those 

 bones which had marrow in them or some little flesh adhering to them 

 have had splinters torn away, or are altogether broken up. Thus, 

 it is clear, from the accumulation of evidence, that hyrenas were there, 

 and had dragged in the remains of many of the larger animals which are 

 found lying about. In some cases we find, instead of a mass of broken 

 bones, the bones lie whole upon the floor of the cave. This seems to have 

 been the case where the remains of bears are found ; it is different 

 when we have a hyrena den. It is evident that, in determining these 

 questions, a great many things have to be taken into account. As 

 to the way in which the carcases are dealt with, we must remember 

 that, when the krger animals have done with them, the smaller ones 

 come in, the foxes, the rats, and the mice, all of them pulling the bones 

 about. We trace them by the marks of their little teeth. Thus, you may 

 find the bones drawn up into crevices into which they could not have been 

 carried by the larger animals. Once, at Cambridge, I was shown a set of 

 bones that ought not to have been in the gravels, from which they were 

 said to have been obtained. I went and asked the workmen where they 

 got them. They showed me the place, and told me they were in a sort of 

 hole stretching from one point to another across the corner of the pit. I 

 cleared out and examined the hole, and noticed in it a series of claw-marks, 

 showing that the place had been used by badgers and foxes. Thus we had 

 another example of the way by which the bones were conveyed into places 

 \\ here the larger animals could not have taken them nor water have washed 

 them. Or, again, the bones may be those of animals which died in the cave 

 bears, for instance. In one case the bats were described as furnishing, in 

 the shape of their own bones, a large portion of the deposit. Thus, it will be 

 seen, we have to go from one thing to another to arrive at the true explana- 

 tion. Those animals came there, lived there, and died there, and the 

 remains of bats covered the whole of the bottom of the cave. Owls and 

 other birds of prey also bring in remains of animals, as I pointed out in the 

 case of Cave Ha. The same kind of thing has been noticed in America, 

 where in the upper layers of cave-deposits are, in a number of cases, found 



