528 OSSIFEROUS CAVES OF GOWER. 



Hippopotamus within the precincts of Gower is not a little 

 remarkable, considering that at the present day there is 

 nothing resembling a lake or the relics of one, in the penin- 

 sula, and that the largest existing stream, namely, the 

 ' Pennard,' does not exceed the dimensions of a small brook. 

 There are no grounds to believe that the few remains of 

 Hippopotamus in the cavern of ' Raven's Cliff ' were trans- 

 ported there from a distance, more than in the case of any 

 of the other large herbivorous animals found in it ; and the 

 difficulty of explaining how they came there is best ex- 

 pressed by stating, that the confined peninsula of Gower, 

 destitute either of lakes or of large streams of fresh water, is 

 one of the last localities where the remains of Hippopotamus 

 might bave been looked for, consistently with what we know 

 of the habits of the living species, and of H. major, where it has 

 been found in the greatest abundance, namely, in the vicinity 

 of extensive lacustrine deposits, like those of tbe Val d'Arno. 



The most singular point connected with the distribution of 

 Fossil Mammalia in the Gower caves is the immense quan- 

 tity of Deers' antlers referable chiefly to Cervus Chiettardi, 

 which, as already stated, were encountered in ' Bosco's Den.' 

 The fauna yielded by that cavern is more restricted in spe- 

 cies than that of almost any of the others, being confined to 

 species of Bear [Ursus spelaius), Wolf, Fox, Arvicola, Bos, and 

 Deer, the last of which turned up in very great abundance. 

 Between one thousand and eleven hundred distinct antlers 

 were collected, the great majority of them shed, more or less 

 fractured, chiefly of young animals ; some of them much rolled, 

 but bardly any presenting marks of having been gnawed. 

 Buckland inferred, that the cave of Kuloch in Germany con- 

 tained the remains of 2,500 Bears of the species Ursus spe- 

 Iobus, the calculation having been founded upon the quantity 

 of animal matter found on the floor of a single vault; and 

 last year I brought before the Geological Society proofs of the 

 enormous number of Hippopotami, within and outside the 

 mouths of some of the caves in Sicily. The antlers of ' Bosco's 

 Den ' belong to the same class of extraordinary numerical ac- 

 cumulations. To appreciate to its full extent the singidarity 

 of this case, it ought to be remembered that ' Bosco's Den ' is 

 not an isolated cave, forming the sole receptacle for the re- 

 mains of a large district, but that it is in close vicinity to a 

 group of ossiferous caverns, like ' Crow Hole,' ' Raven's Cliff,' 

 ' Bacon Hole,' and ' Minchin Hole,' in none of wbich was 

 anything approaching the same number of antlers observed. 

 On the contrary, they were rare. 



Of other Ruminants, remains of Bos (Bison) priscus were 

 abundant in all the caverns. Thev occurred in ' Bacon Hole,' 



