THE nONE-CAVE OR PISSUEE 01' DURDIIAM DOWN. 39 



almost wliolly indobtod to tlio writings of Professor W. Boyd 

 Dawkins, IMl.S., to whoso very valuable and interesting 

 work, entitled " Cave Hunting," I would refer all who arc 

 interested in the subject for fuller information. In tho 

 Durdham Down fissui'e, as in several other British caves, 

 wo meet with the remains of such distinctly southern-living 

 forms as tho lion, liyiBua, a,nd hippopotamus, associated with 

 a number of temporato species, such as the wolf, fox, bison, 

 brown bear, otter, hare, and horse, and at least one distinctly 

 northern animal, the reindeer. This remarkable association 

 in Pleistocene Europe (and Britain) of animals, some of 

 which are now only alivo in widely remote parts of tho 

 woi'ld, and in far-removed latitudes, points to very great 

 geographical and oliniatal changes since that period. Nearly 

 a,ll tho temperate, northei'n and mountainons species of 

 Pleistocene Europe can be traced to noi'tliern and central 

 Asia, whilst the head(|uarters of fho .southern animals are in 

 Africa and South Asia. I'jurope was then intimately con- 

 nected with Africa on tho south, and with Asia on the east, 

 and offered no barriers to the migration of Asiatic and 

 African animals, as far to tho west as Britain and Ireland. 

 The apparent anomaly of an intermixture of southern with 

 tempei'ato and noi'thorn foims in the same district, and oven 

 m tho same cave deposit, is in all probability to bo explained 

 by extreme seasonal, coupled with considerable secular, 

 variations in tho climate of the same regions, leading to tho 

 constant swinging backwards and forwards of the northern 

 and southern forms over the middle or normally temperate 

 zone. Throughout this middle zone, comprising Prance, 

 Germany, and the greater part of Bi'itain, the climate was 

 colder in winter than now, and warmer in, summer, as it 

 IS at tho present day in Central Asia and North America, 

 where large tracts of land extend from the polar region 



