#. 
58 Bone Caves. 
The new bone caves then, which M.' Pittore has just discovered, 
are, as it were, united at the foot of the calcareous chain which pre- 
cedes, in a manner, the primitive mountains of the neighborhood of 
Saint-Pons. These caves, situated in a wild valley, in the center of 
a wood which formerly was in all probability a great forest, are prin- 
cipally characterized by bears of the largest and strongest form, 
They are the Ursus speleus and arctoideus, which are found in great 
quantities in the caves of Germany and the north of France. Deer, 
(animals which frequent similar stations and indicate the same sort of 
region,) are mingled with their remains. Both of them are associa- 
ted with animals of the rabbit genus, with different kinds of birds, 
and with reptiles of the tortoise kind. But with all these different 
species, there is not discovered that immense quantity of horses 
whose remains compose the greater part of the population driven 
into the caves of Bize; from which the caves of Fauzan are never- 
theless but a few leagues distant. 
Is not this circumstance to be explained on the principle that the 
horses were masters of the vast marshes and the plain, in the neigh 
borhood of Narbonne; while the bears, banished to the mountains, 
as they would be at the present time, if they still existed, frequented 
the forests and the woods of the north, at a great distance from the 
Mediterranean? At all events, the accumulated bones in the caves 
of Fauzan are not of the same kind as those in the caverns of Bize. 
The number of animals driven into the former is considerably less 
than that in the latter, particularly in relation to the number of indi- 
viduals. The bone mud of Bize is a sort of bony paste. In the 
subterranean caves of Fauzan the bones are sufficiently distinct t 
show that the animals have been brought thither at very different 
ages, some having their teeth almost entirely worn out, and others 
presenting numerous epiphyses, the teeth not having issued from 
their alveoles. 
Two of the bone caves examined by M. Pittore are on the left 
bank of the Cesse and three on the right. The latter are the only 
ones, which in consequence of their imposing aspect, as well as from 
their grandeur and importance, have received particular names, and 
attracted the attention of naturalists. The first, known in the country 
under the name of Baume d’Aldenne, and designated by Gensanne U 
der that of Baume dela Coquille, had struck this naturalist, on account 
of the pottery which he had observed in the slime which covered the 
surface; but as, at the time when Gensanne visited these caverns 
