OF CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS. 521 



plates), and in a memoir inserted among those of the 

 Berlin Society of Naturalists, vol. ix. 1784, p. 56. 

 Another description was afterwards given, under the 

 title of Objets dignes de remarque des environs de Mug- 

 gendorf, by J. C. Rosenmiiller, folio, with coloured 

 views, Berlin, 1804. And more lately, M. Goldfuss, at 

 present Professor of Natural History at Bonn, and Se- 

 cretary of the Academia Naturae Curiosorum, has made 

 them the subject of a particular work printed in 1810 

 in German, under the title of Environs of Muggendorf, 

 in which he describes them with the greatest care, as 

 well as the surrounding country, of which he gives a 

 very correct topographical chart. A great part of these 

 caves is situated in a small bailiwick, named Streitberg, 

 which was formerly a dependence upon the country of 

 Bayreuth, but was inclosed in that of Bamberg, and 

 now forms part of the kingdom of Bavaria. The great- 

 est number occur in a small peninsula, formed by the 

 river of Wiesent, which falls into the Pegnetz, and be- 

 longs to the basin of the Main. 



However, the chief of all these astonishing caves, those 

 of Gaylenreuth, are beyond the limits of this peninsula, 

 being on the left bank of the Wiesent, to the north-west 

 of the village from which it derives its name. The entrance 

 is perforated in a vertical rock ; it is 7J feet high, and 

 faces the east. The first cave turns to the right, and is 

 upwards of 80 feet long. The unequal heights of the vault 

 divide it into four parts ; the first three are from 15 to 

 20 feet high, the fourth is only 4 or 5. At the bottom of 

 this latter, on the level of the floor, there is a hole 2 feet 

 high, which affords a passage to the second cave : it has 

 first a direction to the south, over a length of 60 feet by 



