ANCIENT AND EXTINCT BRITISH QUADRUPEDS. 129 
If its numbers can be at all estimated from the remains which 
have been discovered in caverns and river deposits, it is clear that 
this feline animal was not common; the likelihood may have been 
that it had no chance with its more formidable rivals just men- 
tioned, who monopolised more or less their common prey. 
TuE Lynx, which is still resident in many parts of the Continent, 
was also a native of pre-historic England, but hitherto its remains 
have only been discovered in a single locality. 
Tae Witp Cart, although now very local in its distribution, still 
lingers on the scene where its progenitors lived with the Lion, 
Bear, Wolf, and other carnivorous animals. On comparing the 
skeleton of the ancient British Wild Cat with that of a recent 
individual, no difference is observable, for the reason probably 
that birds and rabbits, its natural prey, have abundantly supplied 
ils necessities; it has, however, been gradually destroyed, or 
driven back to a few remaining strongholds, by civilized man. 
Tue Hy#na, which frequented Great Britain in pre-historic 
times, and contemporaneously with the extinct bears, was of 
larger dimensions than any species now living, although it is now 
generally regarded as the progenitor of the Spotted Hyzna. 
THE Sporrep Hyna, as we may call it, was at one time very 
common in England, but does not seem to have existed either in 
Ireland or the Highlands of Scotland. A graphic description of 
one of its numerous dens is given by Dr. Buckland,* who, in 
referring to the contents of Kirkdale Cave, Yorkshire, likens the 
floor to a dog-kennel, where gnawed fragments of the bones of 
Elephants, Rhinoceroses, Bears, Lions, and herbivorous quadru- 
peds were strewn about among the remains of no less than three 
hundred Hyznas, the droppings (coprolites) of which were also 
met with in profusion. This ancient den must have been used by 
them fora very long period, and, considering that the remains of 
no less than twenty different species of animals were discovered 
there, it may be surmised that, at all events, there was a great 
variety of quadrupeds in the woods and wolds of Yorkshire in 
those days. Although the Hyena does not refuse flesh in a fresh 
state, it prefers a putrid carcase; and its powerful jaws and strong 
* Bridgewater Treatise. 
