Vol. 50.] EISSURES NEAR IGHTIIAM DISCUSSION. 211 



the Weald Clay. He was not at present (nor was Prof. Prestwich) 

 prepared to accept this view, although there are many difficulties in 

 explaining the origin of gravels near the existing watersheds ; but 

 similar difficulties occur in other parts of the Wealden area- 

 Sir Henry Howorth desired to express his admiration of the 

 work of Mr. Abbott. While Dupont at Brussels and Nehring at 

 Berlin have been carefully working out the remains of the small 

 mammals found in the Pleistocene beds and the caves of those 

 countries, we have done little in this respect since Sanford and 

 Dawkins's exploration in the West of England, our attention having 

 been largely limited to the larger mammals. The careful and laborious 

 work of Mr. Abbott and Mr. Newton on the products of this fissure 

 had therefore removed an opprobrium from English geology. 



The tooth of the hyaena on the table was labelled crocuta, which 

 doubtless means the old H. spelcea. To call it crocuta, unless the 

 attribution is quite certain, is somewhat dangerous ; but Mr. New- 

 ton seemed to identify it with H. brunnea, a very different beast 

 with a very different history. He (the speaker) had a great dislike 

 for the formation of new species on insufficient evidence. In a genus 

 so variable as Mustela it would be well to compare these bones 

 with skeletons of the fitch and other American living species, before 

 burdening our lists with a new name on the ground of a somewhat 

 larger size in the bones merely. 



In regard to Mr. Abbott's theoretical views, he could not believe 

 that these bones were carried into the fissure by river-action. Any 

 river powerful enough to have carried along with it the large pieces of 

 mammoth and rhinoceros-bone would have scoured the fissure of all 

 these minute bones, which showed no trace of breakage or of wear. 

 The absence of fish-bones and of fluvial molluscs, and of the ordinary 

 wreckage of a river, were strongly against the view. On the other 

 hand, the presence of bones gnawed by hyaenas, the occurrence of so 

 many frogs' bones and the bones of bats, most unlikely animals to 

 be found in a river-bed, pointed to the so-called fissure having been 

 a cave. The beautifully sharp and unweathered condition of the 

 bones also showed that they were not exposed to the air even for one 

 season, but had been carefully protected by a roof. It was such an 

 assemblage as we should expect in a hyaena-den which was also 

 frequented by large owls that fed on the small rodents, the frogs, 

 etc., and also by bats. Hence also the great variety of species 

 which marks the larder of some raptorial beasts and birds. 



If a cave, as he would certainly maintain, the question of how 

 the bones were found as they occurred involved a great many con- 

 siderations, which he had discussed at great length in the chapter on 

 Caves in ' The Mammoth and the Elood ' and which there was not 

 time to discuss now. 



Dr. Henry Hicks also spoke. 



Mr. E. T. Newton, in the absence of Mr. Abbott, thanked the 

 Society for the cordial reception accorded to both their papers, and, in 

 reply to remarks by Sir H. Howorth, said that the balance of evidence 

 was in favour of the hyaena's tooth belonging to Hycpna crocuta. 



