The Rats and Rabbits are supposed to have entered the cave spon- 

 taneously, and died in the holes which they had burrowed in the 

 soft diluvial mud, and the Cock's bone to have been introduced by 

 a Fox through a small hole in the side of the cavern, which had been 

 long known as a retreat of Foxes, in the bottom of an ancient 

 quarry. 



Land shells, similar to those which hybernate in the soil, or in fis- 

 sures of the neighbouring rocks, are also found in the mud that filled 

 the cave. The author considers that these may either be the shells 

 of animals that in modern times have entered some small crevices 

 in the side of the cavern to hybernate there, and have buried them- 

 selves in the mud ; or that they entered in more ancient times, and 

 died whilst the cave was inhabited by hyaenas, and lay mixed with 

 the bones before the introduction of the mud and pebbles; — or that 

 they were washed in by the same diluvial water which imported the 

 diluvial detritus in which they are now imbedded. 



Dr. Buckland draws a strong line of distinction between the mud 

 and gravel of the caves and fissures, which he considers to be part 

 of the general diluvium so widely spread over the adjacent country, 

 and the local freshwater formations occurring also in the same 

 neighbourhood of Montpelier ; and which differ as decidedly from 

 them, and bear to them the same relation as the gravel on the sum- 

 mit of Headen Hill in the Isle of Wight, bears to the strata of fresh- 

 water limestone that lie beneath it. 



The author next proceeds to consider the epoch of the deposi- 

 tion of the remains of quadrupeds that have been found in some 

 extensive quarries of stone and sand in the Fauxbourg St. Domi- 

 nique at Montpelier, imbedded in a very recent marine formation 

 which has been described by M. Marcel de Serres, in the 4th vo- 

 lume of the Linnean Transactions of Paris. 



In the central beds of this deposit, the remains of the Elephant, 

 Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, Mastodon, Ox and of the Stag, are 

 found intermingled with those of Cetacea, (the Dugong, or La- 

 mantin); they are more or less rolled, and are occasionally covered 

 with marine shells. Beds of oysters also (the Ostrea crassissima of 

 Lamarck) and barnacles, occur in horizontal and nearly parallel 

 strata amid the marine sand, and show this deposition to have ta- 

 ken place gradually and at successive though perhaps short inter- 

 vals, rather than to have resulted from a sudden marine irruption. 

 The period of this deposition is supposed by the author to have been 

 that which immediately preceded, and was terminated by the last 

 grand aqueous revolution which formed the diluvium. 



To a similar and contemporaneous period with this upper marine 

 formation of Montpelier, he refers the bones of the Elephant, Rhi- 

 noceros, &c. with marine shells, (oysters and barnacles,) adhering 

 to them, that have been found in certain parts of the Sub-apennine 

 hills ; and also the bones of similar quadrupeds and shells that occur 

 in the Crag of Norfolk and Suffolk. 



To the same period also he assigns the bones of the osseous brec- 

 cia of Gibraltar, Cette, and other fissures and caves along the north 

 coast of the Mediterranean ; and the accumulation of the remains 



