86 THE BRITISH MAMMALS PAST AND PRESENT. 



climate. And among the whales, which included the sperm whale, 

 we have the first appearances of the living humpback (Megaptera 

 boops), common rorqual and northern rorqual, pilot whale, and 

 bottlenose dolphin (Tur slops tursio). 



In the fauna of the caves we have the transition between that of 

 the present and that of the Pleistocene. In the main we may look 

 upon this fauna as prehistoric in the geological sense, though many 

 of the deposits must have occurred in Pleistocene times, many 

 within the historic period, and some evidently must have been con- 

 tinuous up to quite recent years. For our purpose the point is with- 

 out importance ; it is enough for us to know what mammals existed 

 in our country between the early days after its final separation from 

 the continent and the beginning of the records which developed into 

 the " British List " that forms the basis of this book. 



In the caves then we find the greater horseshoe bat and the 

 noctule, which may or may not have been early arrivals or survivals, 

 but it is their first appearance, arid they are the only bats that the 

 cavern floors have yielded. The hedgehog was a cave-dweller it is 

 his first appearance so was the common shrew, harmless creatures 

 both. But another cave-dweller was Machterodus tatidens, a sabre- 

 toothed tiger, which had both edges of its upper canines with serra- 

 tions like those of a saw a by no means harmless companion and 

 with him were Felis brevirostris arid the Kaffir cat (F. caffrci), now 

 living in Asia and Africa, which is the probable ancestor of most of 

 our domestic, cats, and besides these there were the existing wild 

 cat (F. cat us) and the lion, lynx, and leopard, the spotted hyaena, the 

 wolf to stay with us until 1743 the common fox, the Arctic fox, 

 and ahuntirig-dog (Lycaon anglicus) almost identical with that now in 

 South Africa. There were three bears (the brown bear, grizzly, and 

 cave-bear), the pine-marten, polecat, stoat, weasel, arid wolverene, 

 and the badger and the otter. The cave rodents include the beaver, 

 the common mouse, the brown rat, the field vole, the northern vole, 

 continental field vole, water vole, and bank vole, one of the hamsters 

 (Cricetus songarus), the Norwegian lemming (Myodes lemmus), and the 

 banded lemming (Cuniculus torquatus), now of the Arctic regions, one 

 of the pikas (Lagomys pusillus), now existing in Northern Europe 

 and Asia, the common hare, the mountain hare, and the rabbit. 

 The wild ox was there, as were the European bison, the sheep, and 

 the goat, the moose, reindeer, red deer, and Irish elk ; and also there 

 were the wild boar arid hippopotamus, the. woolly, leptorhine, and 

 rnegarhine rhinoceroses, the straight-tusked elephant and the 

 mammoth. Many of them evidently had the run of the cave as now, 

 some of them must have used the cave as a den, some must have 

 been brought in whole or in fragments as prey, and some may have 

 crept in to die. Any way, there is no doubt that these animals 

 lived in our country, and that it is in these caves we meet with the 

 last traces of our lions, lynxes, leopards, hyaenas, hippopotamuses, 

 rhinoceroses, and elephants, in whose existence some people find it 

 so difficult to believe. 



They are certainly in a strict sense our country's animals, and 

 as such ought to figure in a systematic list. Such a list we have 

 not yet seen, but that is no reason why we should not have on 

 Jiere ; and as it will be more useful with the living species 



