'. 4, 1875J 



NATURE 



19 



n of bear, one of a small rodent, one jaw of fox, numerous 

 _- and fragments of bone, of which six had been charred and 

 trater number gnawed, a large number of coprolites, and 

 \ tools, flakes, and chips of flint, in the Cave Earth ; 213 

 : of bear, some of them in jaws or pieces of jaws, two of 

 . in paits of upper jaw, and twenty implements and flakes of 

 and chert 



;.• Ktccss. — On completing the exploration of the Cave 



scriptions, operations were at once commenced in a " Re- 



„o ' occupying its north-western comer, and which was ex- 



Iiected to lead to a new external entrance to the cavern. It 

 xtends in a north-westerly direction for fully sixty feet, and is 

 >f sufficient width for a man to pass easily ; beyond this its extent 

 5 considerable, but at present it is too narrow for examination. Its 

 r is a thick sheet of the crystalline or more ancient stalagmite, 

 s abruptly tnmcated at the junction of the Recess with the 

 ,„.c of Inscriptions. It rested on a thick mechanical accumu- 

 atioD, which is unmistakeable breccia, and reaches a higher 

 level than elsewhere in the cavern, so far as is at present known. 

 t was decided to leave intact the Stalagmitic Floor, and in fact 

 burrow under it ; but when the excavation had reached a 

 ce of ten feet, the two walls were found to be so very 

 ;early together as to render it necessary to abandon the work, or 

 " i^reak up the floor and proceed at a higher leveL The former 

 e was, though reluctantly, decided on. The only specimens 

 I here were two teeth of bear, a few bones, and an imim- 

 .nt piece of flint. 



':e Alcove. — A recess in the eastern wall of the Cave of 

 :. :riptions, near the Hedges Boss, and which received the 

 a 11. e of the " Alcove, "' was next explored. "SVhen emptied it 

 ■ 'id to be scarcely lofty enough for a man to stand erect, 

 en feet in length and breadth, but divided into two compart- 

 s by a limestone partition extending nearly across it. Its 

 ration, which occupied three weeks, was rewarded with 

 y-nine "finds" of remains of mammals, including fifty-nine 

 eeth of bear, several of them in portions of jaws ; sixteen of 

 ox, all of them in portions of three lower jaws ; four of hyasna ; 

 ■'"3rous bones, including several good specimens, though all 

 em more or less fragmentary ; and one' coprolite. The 

 of hysena, two of the jaws of fox, and the coprolite were 

 •vith in cave earth ; but the remainingjaw of fox (No. 6,619) 

 -ound in the breccia. It was broken into two pieces, which 

 vere lying together and contained five teeth, and is the only 

 Inown relic of the genus in this old deposit. The Alcove con- 

 Sained no trace of flint or chert 



j The Great Oz'tn. — A very long, narrow, and low tuimel 

 bpening out of the south-western comer of the Cave of Inscrip- 

 ions has been termed the " Great Oven." Its exploration was 

 ?f gun July 27, 1875, or but four days before the period at which 

 report closes. It contains a thm layer of cave earth, and a 

 -It of breccia of unknown depth. The former has already 

 .ic.txcd a few traces of hyaena, and the latter a greater nimiber of 

 usine remains. 



On studying the osseous remains found in the Breccia in the 

 branches of the cavern explored during the last twelve months, 

 Jie following prominent facts arrest attention : — Some of the 

 teeth of bear are those of very old animals and wom almost 

 :o the fang. The jaws, though frequently broken, have never 

 '.ost their lower borders, as is almost uniformly the case with the 

 :ave-earth specimens ; and none of the bones appear to have 

 been gnawed. In no instance were the bones found lying in 

 their anatomical relations, but different parts of the skeleton were 

 often huddled confusedly together ; thus, in No. 6,613, found in 

 the Alcove, a canine tooth adheres to one side of the proximal 

 end of a tibia, and a piece of jaw to another side. Some of the 

 specimens have fretted surfaces, and appear to have been rolled 

 by running water. Many of the bones were broken where they 

 were finally lodged, and the parts, with little or no displacement, 

 reunited with stalagmitic infiltration. Others appear to have 

 been flattened, or more or less crushed, where they lay. Occa- 

 sionally, in the same rock-like mass of breccia were found 

 bones of very different colours, showing that mere colour is no 

 test of age. 



Nor are the remains from the cave earth void of instruction. 

 Up to the present time, wherever the cave earth has been met 

 with, there also have traces of the hyaena been found, either in 

 the form of parts of his skeleton, or his coprolites, or bones 

 scored with his teeth-marks, or jaws divested of their lower 

 borders, or long bones broken after his well-known fashion. But 

 though everywhere present in greater or lesser numbers, these 

 traces became less and less plentifiil with increased distance from 



the external entrances of the cavern, and were very " few and 

 far between " in the chamber most remote from the entrances. 

 Whilst remains of the hyaena were thus met with wherever the 

 cave earth occurred, they were accompanied in the interior by 

 very few of his contemporaries. Thus, whilst the chambers adja- 

 cent to the entrances contained teeth and bones of horse, rhino- 

 ceros, deer (several species), bear, fox, elephant, ox, lion, wolf, 

 and hare, as well as hya;na — the last being by far the most pre- 

 valent — remains of the hyaena alone have been found during the 

 last twelve months. Nor is it without interest to note the 

 branches of the cavern in which remains of the different forms 

 just enumerated were last detected on the way to the Cave of 

 Inscriptions. The hare was not found anywhere in the western 

 division of the cavern — that of which the Cave of Inscriptions 

 is the innermost chamber ; the badger, wolf, and ox were re- 

 presented in the " Charcoal Cave," but not beyond it ; and 

 relics of horse, rhinoceros, deer, bear, fox, elephant, and lion 

 did not appear beyond the Long Arcade. Finally, no traces 

 of Machairodus have been met with since the incisor tooth, found 

 July 29, 1872, and described in the Eighth Report, presentai at 

 Brighton. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



Proceidings of the Berwickshire Naturalists* Field Club, vol. vii. 

 No. ii. — This earliest of Field Clubs continues to sustain the 

 high reputation it has had from the beginning ; the present part 

 of the Proceedings shows that the members continue to investi- 

 gate diligently and to good purpose the natural history and anti- 

 quitiesW the interesting district which forms their field. Most 

 of the papers are of real value, and the best service we can 

 render the club and our readers is to give a list of them : — " On 

 supposed lake or river-terraces near Kelso," by Mr. T. Craig; 

 " On Jedburgh Pears," by Mr. James Tate ; " On the antiquity 

 and history of some Border Pears," by Mr. Jas. Hardy ; " On 

 evidences of ice-action in Berwickshire," by Mr. W. Stevenson ; 

 "Ornithological notes," by Mr. H. Gibb ; "On the value of 

 the horse-chestnut {^/Esculus hippocastanum) as a timber-tree in 

 plantations," by Mr. R. Carr-Elhson ; " On Lepidoptera, taken 

 mostly in 1874," a list of captiues by various members ; " On 

 the signification of some names of places in South Northumber- 

 land," by Mr. R. C arr- Ellison ; "On the occurrence of the 

 Wild Cat m the border district," by Mr. James Hardy ; " A list 

 of local plants and their localities," by Mr. A. Brotherston ; "Or- 

 nithological notes," by Mr. R. Gray ; "On iron and iron slaug 

 found at Worm Law and Yeavering," by Mr. Jas. Hardy ; " On 

 some flint implements of prehistoric people in Berwickshire,' 

 by Mr. James' Hardy, with some beautifully executed illustra- 

 tions ; "A note on a specimen oi Arabis iurrita, discovered at 

 Haining," by Mr. A. H. Borthwick ; "On ancient stone cysts 

 and human remains discovered at AycIifTe House, near Ayton," 

 by Mr. J. Hardy, with an illustration ; " On a bronze celt found 

 at Linden," by 'Mr. R. G. Balam, with an illustration ; " Some 

 notes on the movements of migratory birds," by Dr. Scott and 

 Mr. Hardy J "Zoological notes," by Messrs. Ferguson and 

 Brotherston ; various information on local natural history, by 

 Mr. Hardy ; " On some of the birds of Lauderdale," by Mr. A. 

 Kelly; "List of Araneidea and Phalangidea, collected from 

 Oct. 187 1 to Dec. 1874, in Berwickshire and Northumberland, 

 by Mr. James Hardy," by the Rev. O, P. Cambridge; "On 

 Berwickshire insects," by Sir. Hardy, who also has " Contribu- 

 tions to the entomology of the Cheviot Hills." 



Third Report of the IVinchester College Natural History 

 Society. — This report is altogether very encouraging ; it has, as 

 the preface justly states, "a real amount of active and intelligent 

 life " to record dining the year. The members as a body seem 

 to be really interested in the work of the Society, and the 

 tendency of that work is evidently to train the members to be 

 accurate observers and independent thinkers. In the preface 

 considerable importance is rightly attached to the collection and 

 exhibition of specimens at the meetings for examination and 

 comment, especially with the view of encouraging the younger 

 members to become intelligent collectors. The report con- 

 tains a considerable number of papers, nearly all by present 

 or past members, and these papers give evidence of real 

 intelligence, honest study, and in some cases of original observa- 

 tion. The first paper especially, that by W^. A. Forbes, is highly 

 creditable to its author ; G. L. Hawker's, on Bio-geology, shows 

 considerable knowledge and not a little originality of conception; 

 the paper by N. M. Richardson also deserves mention. But indeed 



