HYAENA SPELJEA. 159 



more remarkable, the Hysena was represented in the an- 

 cient Fauna of South America by a species which its dis- 

 coverer, Dr. Lund, has termed Hyeena neogeea.* 



The following are some judicious remarks, by Sir 

 Henry de la Beche, on the mode of observation to be pur- 

 sued in the exploration of caverns in search of fossil re- 

 mains. " An observer, after entering a cavern, may again 

 return from it without the slightest suspicion that it is 

 ossiferous, and yet the cave contain the abundant remains 

 of animals. Many in our own country, which have fur- 

 nished hundreds of bones and teeth of various mammi- 

 ferous creatures to those who properly searched for them, 

 have been visited from time immemorial by numbers who 

 never observed a trace of such exuviae. Caverns are far 

 more abundant in limestone rocks than in others ; and hence 

 the frequent occurrence of stalactitical and stalagmitical 

 matter in ossiferous caves, which often masks the organic 

 riches beneath it." . ..." When an observer discovers 

 bones in a cavern, he should pay particular attention to 

 their mode of occurrence. Let him make a complete 

 section of the stalagmite, mud, silt, sands, or gravel, as 

 the case may be, noting the depth of each different bed, 

 and carefully abstract specimens from each before frag- 

 ments of it become mingled with the others. He must 

 be careful to mark whether different kinds of bones or 

 teeth occur in particular beds, or are all mingled together. 

 He should also make different sections of the cave at 

 various points, particularly noting where or in what di- 

 rections it may communicate with the surface, for caverns 

 frequently lead to the surface in other places than their 

 entrances, such places being filled with fallen rubbish. An 

 observer should be particularly careful in ascertaining the 



* Blik paa Brasiliens Dyreverden, &c., in the Transactions of the Royal 

 Academy of Copenhagen, vol. vii. 1841, pp 93, 94. 



