﻿36 THE EEV. 0. FISHER OK THE OCCURRENCE OF [Feb. I905, 



base of the deposit was a smooth surface of Chalk, and Mr. Reid 

 found it to be about 12 feet deep at this spot. 



It seems impossible to account, by any natural agency, for such 

 a trench as this on a Chalk-plateau. A stream in such a locality 

 would be unlikely to excavate a deep and narrow channel, much 

 less, if it did so, would it come to an abrupt ending. And, even if 

 we could account for the natural formation of such a trench, how 

 came it that the remains of so many elephants were found in it, 

 and (so far as appears) of no other animals ? 



I have seen in a popular magazine a photograph of a trench, dug 

 and covered with boughs, intended for the capture of elephants ; 

 and this has led me to think that the trench at Dewlish may 

 have been made by primitive men for the same purpose. 

 Unfortunately I cannot recover the reference to this article. 

 Sir Samuel Baker describes this method of taking elephants by 

 natives of Africa. 1 He says that an elephant cannot cross a ditch 

 with hard perpendicular sides, which will not crumble nor yield to 

 pressure. Pitfalls 12 to 14 feet deep are dug in the animals' 

 routes towards drinking-places, and covered with boughs and 

 grass. The pits are made of different shapes, according to the 

 individual opinions of the trappers. "When caught, the animals 

 are attacked with spears while in their helpless position, until they 

 at last succumb through loss of blood. Their flesh is eaten. The 

 way in which they are cut up, and the flesh dried in strips, is 

 illustrated in Mr. A. H. Neumann's ' Elephant-Hunting in East 

 Equatorial Africa' 1898 (pp. 108 & 178). Probably in primitive 

 times their flesh, and not their ivory, was the object for which 

 they were killed. 2 If the stream which now runs at the bottom 

 of the hill, despite subsequent changes in the contour of the country, 

 already existed, then this trench would have been made in a position 

 suitable to intercept the route to a drinking-p]ace. 



There seems to have been hitherto no conclusive evidence that 

 man was contemporary with Elephas meridionalis in this country. 

 Mr. W. J. Lewis Abbott has found what he believes to be worked 

 flints in the Forest-Bed of Cromer, and he has kindly permitted me to 

 examine them. They have also been found by Mr. 0. A. Shrubsole 

 and by others. They have certainly been flaked, but whether 

 artificially or not, it is difficult to determine. In the ' Globe ' 

 newspaper, however, of August 16th, 1895, reference was made to 

 the discovery, by Prof. Marcellin Boule, at Tilloux (in the Charente), 

 of a large number of fossil remains of elephant, rhinoceros, bison, 

 and hippopotamus, together with flint-implements and utensils. 3 



The diagram in my paper of 1888 (p. 819), having been drawn 

 before the deposit had been further examined, is incorrect, for it 



1 ' Wild Beasts & their Ways ' vol. i (1890) pp. 95 & 98. 



2 See, however, W.J. Lewis Abbott, Proc. Greol. Assoc, vol. xi (1891) p. 479, 

 although this relates to E. primigenius. 



3 See also ' L Anthropologic ' vol. vi (1895) pp. 497-509. Prof. Boule now 

 thinks that the elephant of Tilloux is Elephas antiqims, not meridionalis (as 

 stated in the ' Globe '), and expressed himself to that effect at the International 

 Anthropological Congress, held at Paris in 1900. 



