AN ENGEAVED FIGURE OF A GLUTTON. 



211 



in his paper "On the Mammalian Fauna of Greenland," 'Proceed. Zoolog. Soc.' 

 1868, pp. 358 &c., gives some interesting notes about the probable non-occurrence 

 of this animal in Greenland. 



The following note on the Glutton, taken from ' The Geographical Distribution 

 of Mammals,' by Andrew Murray, 1866, p. 116, is quite applicable in this place : 



" GTJIO. The Glutton, or Wolverene, is generally believed to be found in all the three continents of 

 Europe, Asia, and America, although there are still some authors who are disinclined to admit the identity 

 of the old-world and the new-world species. It is a boreal, almost an arctic, animal, coming in the cate- 

 gory of those which compose the circumpolar zone of life ; and yet its remains havo been found in the Caves 

 of Gailenreuth [Franconia], Liege, and Voidon near Joyeuse (Ardeche), and in the caverns of Germany. 

 These remains have been supposed to belong to an extinct species (?. spelceus); but both Baron Cuvier and 

 De Blainville were of opinion that they were those of the existing species. Another extinct species has been 

 described by Kaup from Eppelsheim, under the name of Q. antediluvianus ; but it may belong to the living 

 species. If they belonged to the present species, we cannot escape from the inference, that either it has 

 changed its nature so far as to require now a colder climate than it did formerly, or else that the climate of 

 Europe was much colder when the individuals whose bones are found in the caves in question roamed 

 through France and Germany than it is now." 



In May 1871 Mr. "W. Boyd Dawkins, E.B.S., E.G.S., communicated to the 

 Geological Society of London a memoir on the discovery of the Glutton in Britain, 

 (1) at the Plas-Heaton cave, on the Elwy (near Cefn, St. Asaph), North Wales, 

 by Messrs. Hughes and Heaton, and (2) from the caves of Ban well and Bleadon 

 (Somerset) and Gower (South Wales), by Messrs. Sanford and Dawkins ; and the 

 following extract of observations, resulting from his special examination of the 

 British remains of the Glutton, are well worthy of note, and will be fully appre- 

 ciated by all interested in the study of the Cave-fauna of Western Europe, and in 

 the inquiry as to the coexistence of the Glutton with the Cave-folk of Perigord. 



" The Glutton of the present day inhabits the inclement northern regions of the Old World, to the point 

 where the forests gradually die down into the lonely wastes of the ' Tundras,' and is to be found in Norway, 

 Sweden, Lapland, and as far east as Kamtschatka. In the New World it ranges, under the name of 

 'Wolverine,' northwards from the latitude of Canada. It was seen by Eoss in the 70 parallel in the 

 winter ; and its bones have been met with in Melville Island. Its southern limit in Asia is the latitude 

 50, where it occurs in the Altai. In Europe its southern limit is not clearly defined ; but it has steadily 

 retreated northwards as the vast forests of Germany and Poland gradually fell under the axe of the woodman. 

 According to Eichwald, it once lived in the Lithuanian region with the Bison, which still lingers there under 

 the protection of an Imperial ukase ; and Zimmermann adduces proof of its having been killed as far south 

 as Helmstadt, in Brunswick*. 



" In the Pleistocene Caves of Germany it is found abundantly, with the Eeindeer, Cave Lion, and Hyaena, 



* " The authorities consulted for the range of the Glutton are Blasius (Fauna der Wirbelthiere Deutsch- 

 lands), Zimmermann (Specimen Zoologies Geographicae), and Sir John Eichardson (Fauna Boreali- Americana)." 



