MAMMALIA. 437 



broken and splintered, and bearing evidence of the action of 

 jaws which, even in the more diminutive species at present 

 existing, are known to be sufficiently powerful to bite off the 

 leg of a dog at a single snap. From the facts which his 

 researches elicited, Dr. Buckland infers, that the cave must 

 have been for a long series of years the residence of Hyamas, 

 and that they dragged into its recesses the other animal 

 bodies, the remains of which are found mixed indiscriminately 

 with their own. 



It is a strange tale that within the caves of Yorkshire, and 

 other English localities, those powerful beasts had dwelt, and 

 at night had roamed abroad and sought their prey; and no 

 less strange are the facts brought to light by the examination 

 of the remains of those animals on which they fed. They 

 consisted of the Great Cave Bear and Tiger, the Mammoth, 

 Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, the " Irish Elk," wild oxen of colos- 

 sal size, and other mammalia belonging to an extinct Fauna.* 



We speak of the brevity of life, but our language applies to 

 the life of an individual. Let us expand our thoughts and 

 reflect on the brevity of life, assigned, not to an individual, 

 but to a species. Here several quadrupeds are named, all 

 large and powerful, yet not one of them has left a descendant 

 among living tribes. f They lived their appointed time, per- 

 formed their allotted work, then passed away, and have been 

 succeeded by other species whose structure is no less perfect, 

 and who fulfil no less efficiently what is given them to do. 



The question naturally arises how the various members of 

 the ancient Fauna came into one small island? The answer 

 given by those who have most attentively studied the evidence 

 bearing upon the subject, is that these countries were not at 

 that time separated from the continent of Europe. The 

 geological structure, the fossil remains, and the existing Flora, 

 all testify the same fact, and render the conclusion irresistible, f 



* Of what geologists call " the newest tertiary and drift periods." 

 f Mr. Lyell was the first to make known the remarkable fact, that the 

 " longevity of the species in the mammalia, is upon the whole, inferior to 

 that of the testacea." Principles of Geology, vol. iv. 



J On this subject we would refer to the original and valuable Essay 

 of Professor Edward Forbes, in the first volume of the Memoirs of the 

 Geological Survey of Great Britain; to the Indroduction to Professor 

 Owen's Fossil Mammalia ; and to an able review of the state of our know- 

 ledge upon the subject, in the anniversary address of the President of the 

 Geological Society, Leonard Horner, Esq. F.R.S. 19th Feb. 1847. 



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