§ 39. 



KIRKDALE CAVE. 181 



upon belong to the tiger, bear, wolf, fox, weasel, elephant, 

 rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox, and deer. Bones of a 

 species of hare or rabbit, water-rat, and mouse, with frag- 

 ments of the skeletons of ravens, pigeons, larks, and ducks, 

 were imbedded with these remains. 



From these facts Dr. Buckland inferred that the cave 

 had been inhabited by hyenas for a considerable period, and 

 that many of the remains found there, were of species which 

 had been carried in, and devoured by those annuals, and 

 that in some instances the hyenas preyed upon each other ; 



Lign. 30.— The left side of the lower jaw of a Hyena, from 



KlRKDALE CAVE. 



the gnawed portions of elephants' bones seem to show that 

 occasionally the large mammalia also served as food. It is 

 probable that many of the smaller animals were drifted in 

 by currents, or fell into the chasm, through fissures now 

 closed up by stalactitical incrustations. 



Kent's Cave, near Torquay in Devonshire, Oreston 

 Cave near Plymouth, and Banwell Cave in the Mendip 

 Hills, are well known for the abundance and variety of the 

 fossil bones imbedded in alluvial drift, with which they are 

 partly filled.* 



* In the south-east of England but one instance is known ; a fissure 

 in the sand-rock at Bought on Quarries, near Maidstone, contained the 

 jaw and some bones of a hyena, which are now in the Museum at Oxford. 



