146 HYJENA. 



comminuted state and apparently gnawed condition of the 

 bones, that the cave at Kirkdale had been, during a long 

 succession of years, inhabited as a den by Hyaenas, and that 

 they dragged into its recesses the other animal bodies whose 

 remains are found mixed indiscriminately with their own. 

 " This conjecture," he states, " is rendered almost certain 

 by the discovery I made, of many small balls of the solid 

 calcareous excrement of an animal that had fed on bones, 

 resembling the substance known in the old Materia Medica 

 by the name of ' album graecum ;' its external form is that of 

 a sphere irregularly compressed, as in the faeces of sheep, 

 and varying from half an inch to an inch and half in dia- 

 meter ; its colour is yellowish white ; its fracture is usually 

 earthy and compact, resembling steatite, and sometimes 

 granular ; when compact, it is interspersed with small 

 cellular cavities, and, in some of the balls, there are undi- 

 gested minute fragments of the enamel of teeth. 



" It was, at first sight, recognized by the keeper of the 

 menagerie at Exeter Change, as resembling, both in form 

 and appearance, the faeces of the Spotted, or Cape Hyaena, 

 which he stated to be greedy of bones beyond all other 

 beasts under his care. 



" This information I owe to Dr. Wollaston, who has 

 also made an analysis of the substance under discussion, 

 and finds it to be composed of the ingredients that might 

 be expected in faecal matter derived from bones, viz., phos- 

 phate of lime, carbonate of lime, and a very small propor- 

 tion of the triple phosphate of ammonia and magnesia ; 

 it retains no animal matter, and its originally earthy 

 nature and affinity to bone will account for its perfect 

 state of preservation." 



The force of this evidence, the most conclusive that 

 could be added to the previously ascertained facts, has 



