] 56 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. vi. 



lead. He advances, closely followed by a few of the others, 

 with head erect, and apparently intent on examining 

 the locality. When he has satisfied himself he enters 

 the river, the rest of the herd crowd after him, and in 

 a few minutes the surface is covered with them/' 1 

 Wolves, bears, and foxes hang upon the flanks and rear 

 of these great migratory bodies, and prey upon the 

 stragglers ; and invariably many casualties occur at 

 the fords, where the weak or wounded animal is swept 

 away by the current. From these facts we may infer 

 that a Palaeolithic hunter, standing on one of the hills 

 commanding a view of the district above Windsor in 

 the winter time, would have seen vast herds of reindeer 

 crossing the stream, and in the summer herds of horses 

 and bisons availing themselves of the same fords, with 

 wolves and bears in their train. We shall see, in the 

 next chapter, that reindeer and bisons occupied the same 

 districts of Derbyshire in different seasons of the year ; 

 and we may therefore conclude that the same thing 

 happened in the valley of the Thames. 



In other fluviatile deposits in the Thames valley the 

 reindeer has been found in considerable abundance at 

 Kew, for example, in association with the bison, and in 

 London with the lion, Irish elk, bison, urus, horse, 

 woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, straight-tusked elephant, 

 and hippopotamus. 



Palceolithic Implements in the Valley of the Thames. 



The presence of man at this time in the valley of the 

 Thames is proved by a series of discoveries dating from 



1 Siberia and Polar Sea, trans, by Major Sabine, 1840, 8vo, p. 190. 

 These obviously exaggerated figures must be taken to represent the vast 

 numbers of the animals. 



