154 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF 



The Jura formation particularly is celebrated for them, in that part 

 which extends into Germany, where for ages incredible quantities have 

 been carried off and destroyed, because peculiar medical properties 

 have been assigned to them, and there is sufficient remaining to 

 astound the imagination. They are principally bones of a species of 

 very large bear (ursus speheu-s) characterised by a rounder forehead 

 than that of any of our living bears ; with these bones are mingled 

 those of two other species of bears (U. arctoideus et U. priscus), 

 those of a hyena, (H. fossilis) allied to the spotted Cape hyena, but 

 differing in certain details of its teeth, and the form of its head ; 

 those of two tigers or panthers, those of a wolf, those of a fox, those of 

 a glutton, those of weasels, civets, and other small carnivora. 



"We may remark here, that singular association of animals of which 

 those similar live now in climates as distant as the Cape, the country 

 of the spotted hyenas, and Lapland, the country of our gluttons. And 

 we have thus seen in a cavern in France, a rhinoceros and a rein-deer 

 beside each other. 



Bears rarely occur in alluvial strata, though they are said to have 

 been found in Austria and Hainault, of the large species discovered in 

 caves, and there is one in Tuscany of a peculiar species, remarkable 

 for its compressed canine teeth (U. cullriclens); hyenas are found there 

 more frequently. We have discovered them in France with the bones 

 of elephants and rhinoceroses. A short time since a cavern was dis- 

 covered in England which contained prodigious quantities of them, of 

 all ages, and in the soil even the excrements were plainly to be recog- 

 nized. They must have lived there for a long period, and they had 

 dragged into their cave the bones of the elephants, rhinoceroses, hippo- 

 potami, horses, oxen, deer, and of various glires which are there min- 

 gled with their own remains, and bear evident marks of the tooth of 

 the hyenas. But what must have been the soil of England when these 

 enormous animals served as prey to these ferocious beasts ? These 

 caverns also contain the bones of tigers, wolves and foxes ; but those 

 of the bear are of extremely rare occurrence *. 



However this may be, we see that at the period of the animal popu- 

 lation, now under our consideration, the class of carnivora was numer- 

 ous and powerful. It had three bears with rounded canine teeth ; 

 one bear with compressed canine teeth, a large tiger or lion, another 

 of the felis tribe of the size of a panther, a hyena, a wolf, a fox, a glut- 

 ton, a martin, or polecat, and a weasel. 



See Mr. Buckland's admirable work ' Reliquiae Dihraans.' 



