(36-4 THE ANTIQUITY OF THE LION IN GREECE. 



If bones of the rectttt lion have not 3'et been found in Greece, it 

 should be remembered that the limited researches made in that countr}^ 

 render negative evidence of little account. On the other hand, fossil 

 lion bones are found. Thus only recently, as Dr. T. Kriiper at 

 Athens informed me, Doctor Skuphos found such a skull. The fossil 

 cave lion was spread all over Europe during- the Diluvial period. 

 "In Diluvial bone caves of Europe," says von Zittel," "the cave lion, 

 which does not differ from the lion now found in Africa and western 

 Asia, occurs in solitary examples. In historic time it still inhabited 

 southern Europe." Nehring has recently proved the existence of the 

 Diluvial Wow {Fells s2^elpeaA}o\di.) in the province of Branden})urg,'^ 

 and previousl}' also in Thuringia, Westphalia, Brunswick. Hanover, 

 and the province of Saxony.'' He remarks on that occasion: "As 

 regards the question of the contemporaneousness of man with Fells 

 S2)elcea^ I can not help affirming it on the basis of my excavations in 

 the gypsum quarry of Thiede (Brunswick)." We may expect an 

 elaborate treatise by Professoi' Nehring on the Diluvial lion. He 

 thinks, as he informed me, that about 20,000 years ago, during the 

 steppe period, the cave lion roamed in Germany as far north as Bruns- 

 wick. Dupont considers such fixing of dates impossible, and thinks 

 that for the present we must be content with establishing the succes- 

 sion of forms (loc. cit.). He has variously proven the existence of 

 Fells spelhvd in Belgium.'' Its occurrence in England has been fully 

 discussed bv Dawkins and Sanford,'' who say that it completely dis- 

 ap})eared at the end of the Post-Glacial or Quaternary period, and that 

 no finds of prehistoric time have been made. The same investigators 

 discuss-^ its occurrence also in France, Belgium, Germany, the Car- 

 pates, Italy, and Sicily. In the latter territory it is supposed (accord- 

 ing to Falconer) to have existed contemporaneously with man. Thus, 

 according to paleontological indications, the lion was once spread over 

 almost entire Europe. 



This fossil lion of Europe is, in the opinion of most investigators, 

 identical with the lion of the present. Such identit}" was alread}' 

 asserted by D'Orbigny ■'/ in 1858-1861, and, later, Dawkins and Sanford, 

 in their already quoted work,^*^ in which they treated of the Fells 

 xpelxa with the utmost completeness and care, arrived at the conclu- 

 sion "that there is not one character b}^ which the animal can be dis- 

 tinguished from the living lion. It must therefore be admitted that 



" Handljuch der Paliiontologie, vol. iv, p. 676, 1892. 



'' Sitzunosl)ericlite<ler Gessellpchaft NaturforschenderFreunde, Berlin, 1899, p. 71 sqq. 



'Zeitschrift t'lir Ethnologie, Verhandlungen, vol. x\v, p. 407, 1893. 



''L'liomine pendant les ages de la pierre, 2(1 ed., 1873, pp. 80, 89, 114, 118, etc. 



fLoc. fit., i)p. 151-160. 



./'Loc. cit., p. 160-161. 



'/Diction d'hist. nat. (1858-1861), vol. in, p. 429. 



/'The British Pleistocene Mannnalia, pt. iii, p. 150, 1869. 



