1 873 .J The Kent's Hole Machairodus. 215 



having a bearing on this question : — No teeth of Machairodus 

 were found in those parts of the cavern in which the deposit 

 yielded remains of bears only ; in other words, in the breccia. 

 This he regarded as a very noteworthy fact, as he supposed 

 the animal to have been a species of bear. They were met 

 with in the branch known as the Wolf's Cave, mixed with 

 the teeth and bones of hyaenas, and the gnawed bones of 

 rhinoceros, elephant, and the other ordinary cave-earth 

 mammals. Though some of the remains mixed with them 

 bore marks indicative of contusion, they, though " delicately- 

 edged," bore no such indications. The fang of one of the 

 canines had been broken across, and all the others had been 

 gnawed.* Having carefully examined some of the canines, 

 we can confirm the statement that they are gnawed ; and can 

 add that their mineral condition is that of specimens from 

 the Cave-Earth, not the Breccia. 



Had the teeth in question been derived from the breccia 

 and re-deposited in the cave-earth, it might have been ex- 

 pected that some remains of the same kind would have been 

 met with amongst the immense number of fossils found in 

 the undisturbed original deposit ; but instead of this, neither 

 MacEnery nor the British Association Committee, whose 

 uninterrupted and systematic labours have now extended 

 over eight years, met with the least trace of Machairodus in 

 the breccia. Again, the present explorers carefully re- 

 examined all the deposit broken up, but not removed, by 

 MacEnery in the Wolf's Cave, and they excavated there to 

 a depth greater than that to which he restricted himself; 

 but they neither met with any detached bone or tooth having 

 the mineral character indicative of fossils from the breccia, 

 nor any trace of the older deposit, either as incorporated 

 fragments or in situ. When to these facts — important, 

 though negative — it is added that the teeth under notice 

 have the mineral condition betokening the cave-earth, and 

 that they have not suffered abrasion or contusion, which it 

 is scarcely possible to suppose they would have escaped 

 had they undergone dislodgment, transportation, and re- 

 deposition, especially when the very delicate serration of 

 their edges is borne in mind, a very strong case seems to be 

 made out in favour of the proposition that Machairodus 

 latidens was a member of the Cave-Earth fauna. There is, 

 however, another and a most important fact. As already 

 stated, the fangs of the canines are gnawed ; the work, in 

 all probability, of the hysena — an animal which seems to 



* See Trans. Devon. Assoc., Part iii., pp. 240, 243, 294, 370, 371, and 457. 



