OP CREATION. SI 7 



a proportion of these animals would necessarily be 

 obliged to depend upon less secure recesses, in those 

 parts of the country where limestone rocks offered no 

 cracks and crevices to serve them as dens. 



The hysena is not strictly a destructive carnivorous 

 animal, although it makes the nearest approach to 

 the true feline character in its teeth. It seeks rather 

 the dead carcase than the living prey, and feeds upon 

 offal in preference to killing for itself. The period 

 at which the large species, just described, was an 

 inhabitant of England was, however, also marked 

 by the presence of more than one very large species 

 of the true feline tribe, well worthy of notice. Al- 

 though the animals of this kind are now nearly 

 confined to warm climates, or, at least, are most 

 abundant there, it is by no means the case that 

 there is any peculiarity in their organization limit- 

 ing them in this respect, and it is certainly rather 

 the abundance of food than the temperature that 

 is concerned in the result. The Indian tiger is well 

 known to follow the great herds of antelopes quite 

 to the verge of perpetual snow in the Himalaya 

 mountains. 



The teeth of the fossil tiger of England and 

 northern Europe are at least equal in size to those 

 of the largest Bengal species, and the bones of the 

 extremities are both larger and more powerful ; so 

 that this animal was probably even more gigantic 

 than its powerful recent analogue. Perhaps this 

 greater size may have been necessary to cope with 

 the more vigorous and larger ruminants and pachy- 

 derms which roamed over the open plains, or inha- 

 bited the depths of the forests. 



