THE ANTIQUITY OF THE LloN IN GREECE 665 



Fells spelsea is specifically identical with the lion now living on the 

 face of the earth." For practical reasons they recommend the use of 

 the designation Fdlx leo var. spelcea to denote that variety which dur- 

 ing the Post-Glacial period inhabited the caves of north and west 

 P^urope, In 181K> Nehring" declares, following the opinion of most 

 modern investigators, that the cave lion, Felissjydsea^ is ''nothing else 

 than a nortliorn variety of the lion [evidently provided with a warm, 

 shaggy skin] analogous to the northern variety of the tiger which 

 occurs at present in south Siberia."" Dupont* likewise observes: "The 

 lion, the reindeer, and the stag of the Quaternary epoch, in the remains 

 which have been preserved to us, as much resemble those which live 

 at present as the ibis which was embalmed thousands of 3^ears ago 

 resembles the ibis which embellishes the shores of the Nile. The 

 American Feli.s afro,!' Leidy is also, according to Dawkins and Sanford, 

 identical with F. leo var. spelaia^ so that its range extended o\'er Europe, 

 through Russia and north Asia, and, by way of Bering Strait, into 

 America as far south as Mexico (loc cit., p. 103). 



All the deposits in which the bones of the cave lion have been found 

 in the countries mentioned above are either Post-Glacial or Quater- 

 nary. But Dawkins and Sanford think it w^ould be rash to, a priori, 

 exclude the occurrence in the Pliocene time. The}' also point out that 

 Aristotle calls the lion "rare," while Herodotus, one hundred and fifty 

 years l)efore, could still say there were "many," and they think that it 

 decreased during that interval. The}^ then further observe, follow- 

 ing Lewis,'' that Dio (Jhrysostomus, 80 or 100 a. d., speaks of the 

 complete extinction of the lion, so that within four hundred 3"ears after 

 Aristotle it disappeared from Europe.'' Lastly, they lay stress upon the 

 lion in the folklore of the Balkan peoples because this permits the 

 conclusion of the simultaneous occurrence of the lion with man. This, 

 too, is based chiefly on the data I)rought together by G. C. Lewis in 

 his two extremel}^ readable essays." 



Whatever weight may be given to the accounts or legends of the 

 ancients or to th(> views of modern naturalists on the sinuUtaneous- 

 ness of man with the cave lion, there is at all events a connection 

 between the former and present range of the lion, and since lions still 

 roam not far from Greece its gradual retreat l)efore man and civiliza- 

 tion to the present limit of its range is not only not uidikely, I)ut, on 

 the contrary, most prol)able. 



"Tundren uiid Steppen, IS90, p. 193. 



^La chronolojjie gcologiquc, Tiull. Acad. R. l>(d<zi(nic, ."Id scries, vol. \ in, No. 12, 

 1884, p. 18 of the separate copy. 



'Loc. cit., vol. VMi, p. 83, 1859. "^ 



''See also Dawkins, Die Ili'iiilcii mid die I rfinwiihiici- l-jini|)as, ( icimaii tiausla- 

 tion by Spengel, 1876, ]>. (il!. 



«Notesand Queries, 2d series, vnl. \ m, pji. S]-S4, 1S59, and Vdi.Tx, pp. ^u-hS\ ISdO, 



