TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 0,3 



Ofeston is distinguished as the only known British Cavern which has yielded 

 remains of Rhinoceros leptorhmw (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxvi. p. 45C). 



Yealm-Bridge Cavern, if we mav accept Mr. Bellamy's identification in 1885, 

 was the first in this country in which relics of Glutton were found (South Devon 

 Monthly Museum, vi. pp. 218-223 ; see also Nat. Hist. 8. Devon, 1839, p. 89). The 

 same species was found in the Caves of Somerset and Glamorgan in 1865 (Pleist. 

 Mam., Pal. Soc. pp. xxi, xxii), in Kent's Hole in 1869 (Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1869, 

 p. 207), and near Plas Heaton, in North Wales, in 1870 (Quart. Journ. Geol. 

 Soc. xxvii. p. 407). 



Kent's Hole is the only known British Cave which has afforded remains of 

 Beaver (Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1869, p 208), and, up to the present year, the only 

 one in which the remains of Machairodus latidens had been met with. Indeed, 

 Mr. MacEnery's statement, that he found in 1826 five canines and one incisor of 

 this species in the famous Torquay Cavern, was held by many palaeontologists 

 to be so very remarkable as, at least, to approach the incredible, until the Com- 

 mittee now engaged in the exploration exhumed, in 1872, an incisor of the same 

 species, and thereby confirmed the announcement made by their distinguished 



f>redecessor nearly half a century before (Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1872, p. 46). In April 

 ast (1877) the Rev. J. M. Mello was able to inform the Geological Society of 

 London that Derbyshire had shared with Devon the honour of having been a home 

 of Machairodus latidens. he having found its canine tooth in Robin-Hood Cave in 

 that county, and that there, as in Kent's Hole, it was commingled with remains of 

 the Cave Hyasna and bis contemporaries (Abs. Proc. Geol. Soc. No. 334, pp. 3, 4). 



The Ash Hole, as we have already seen, afforded the first good evidence of a 

 British Reindeer. 



In loolcing at the published Reports on the two famous Torbay Caverns it -will 

 be found that they have certain points of resemblance as well as some of dissi- 

 milarity : — 



1st. The lowest known bed in each is composed of materials which, whilst they 

 differ in the two cases, agree in being such as may have been furnished by the dis- 

 tricts adjacent to the Cavern-hills respectively, but not by the hills themselves, 

 and must have been deposited prior to the existing local geographical conditions. 

 In each, this bed contained flint implements and relics of Bear, but in neither of 

 them those of Hyaana. In short, the Fourth Bed of "Windmill-Hill Cavern, Brix- 

 ham, and the Breccia of Kent's Hole, Torquay, are coeval, and belong to what I 

 have called the Ursine period of the latter. 



2nd. The beds just mentioned were in each Cavern sealed with a sheet of stalag- 

 mite, which was partially broken up, and considerable portions of the subjacent 

 In ds were dislodged before the introduction of the beds next deposited. 



3rd. The Great Bone Bed, both at Brixham and Torquay, consisted of red clayey 

 loam, with a large percentage of angular fragments of limestone; and contained 

 Jlake implements of flint and chert, inosculating with remains of Mammoth, the 

 tichorhine Rhinoceros, and Hyaena. In fine, the Cave-earth of Kent's Hole and the 

 Third lied of Brixham Cavern correspond in their materials, in their osseous con- 

 tents, and in their flint tools. They both belong to what I have named the Ilyccnine 

 period of the Torquay Cave. 



But, as already stated, there are points in which the two Caverns differ : — 



1st. Whilst Kent's Hole was the home of Man, as well as of the contemporary 

 Hyaena during the absences of the human occupant, there is no reason to suppose 

 that either Man or any of the lower animals ever did more than make occasional 

 visits to Brixham Cave. The latter contained no flint chips, no bone tools, no 

 utilized /VriV'w-sliells, no bits of charcoal, and no coprolites of Hyaena, all of which 

 occurred in the Cave-earth of Kent's Hole. 



2nd. In the Torquay Cave relics of Hyaena were much more abundant in the 

 Cave-earth than those of any other species. Taking the teeth alone, of which vast 

 numbers were found, those of the Hyaena amounted to about 80 per cent, of the 

 entire series, notwithstanding the fact that, compared with most of the Cave- 

 mammals, his jaws, when furnished completely, possess but few teeth. At Brix- 



