FELIS SPELJiA. 



165 



Fig. 64. 



\ 



Sectorial molar. Nat. size. 

 Kirk dale. 



have any fossil crania or teeth of the same surpassing 

 magnitude as is displayed by those bones been yet disco- 

 vered in the Continental caverns. 



Four canine teeth and four sec- 

 torial molars of the lower jaw 

 (fig. 64) are enumerated by Dr. 

 Buckland, to whom we owe the 

 first announcement of the Fells 

 speleea as a British fossil, amongst 

 the specimens from the cave at 

 Kirkdale.* With respect to the 

 great Tigers indicated by these 

 fossils, which were extremely rare 

 as compared with the Hyaenas, 

 Dr. Buckland thinks it " more 

 probable that the Hyaenas found 

 their dead carcasses, and dragged them to the den, than 

 that they were ever joint tenants of the same cavern. "-f- 



A metatarsal bone, the third of the right hind-foot, from 

 the Kirkdale cavern, surpasses a little in thickness, but not 

 in length, the corresponding bone in a large Bengal Tiger ; 

 it may have belonged to a young, or a female, of the Felis 

 speleea. 



Two canine teeth of the Felis speleea were obtained 

 from the cavernous fissures at Oreston : one of these be- 

 longing to the upper jaw measures three inches and three 

 quarters in length, and both are inferior in size to the 

 canine from Kent's Hole (fig. 65) ; but, like it, they present 

 the two characteristic longitudinal indentations upon the 

 crown a c : they may have belonged to a small female 

 of the spelaean Tiger. 



From the paucity of the remains of the Felis speleea in 



Reliquiae Diluvianse, pp. 17 and 261. 



+ Ib. p. 35. 



