﻿4 PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



It may be well here to refer to the reported occurrence of hysenoid animals in North 

 America. In his paper on " The Extinct Dogs of North America," 1883, Cope 

 described a form from the Upper Miocene beds of Nebraska and New Mexico, which he 

 named JElurodon Wheel erianus. He grouped this with the Canidae, but nevertheless 

 suspected it to be the ancestor of the Hysenidse, a view which Schlosser 2 accepts, altering 

 Cope's name to Prolty&na. In 1892, Cope 3 published a brief reference to a hyaena- 

 like form from the Pliocene of Texas, which differed from Ilyrs/ta proper in having a 

 fourth premolar in the lower jaw, and probably a shorter blade to the sectorial tooth 

 of the upper jaw. He named this Borophagm diversidens. Lastly, in 1895, Cope* 

 founded a new species of Hycena (II. inexjjectata) on a tooth from a fissure at Port 

 Kennedy, Pennsylvania, which Lydekker 5 suggests may prove to belong to a Nimravus' 



II. DISTRIBUTION IN BRITAIN AND ELSEWHERE. 



While a number of Tertiary species of hyaena have been recognised on the Continent, 

 only detached teeth of this genus have hitherto been discovered below the Forest Bed in 

 Britain. 6 From the latter horizon, however, at Corton Cliff, Suffolk, hyaena remains were 

 described by Newton 7 in 18S3. These consist of the canine, and second, third, and 

 fourth premolars, all from the upper jaw, and all clearly referable to II. crocuta. It is 

 thus evident that the animal was an immigrant from the continent of Europe in Pliocene 

 times. In this respect it resembles the cave bear and horse, with which its remains 

 are often associated, and differs from the lion, which does not appear to have reached 

 England till Pleistocene times. 



In these times the hyaena was extremely plentiful in England. Its remains 

 are not infrequent in river gravels, but its almost universal occurrence in cave deposits 

 shows that in the Pleistocene period it was essentially a cave dweller as it is at the 

 present time. The fact that these caves were the actual dens of the hyaenas, in which 

 they lived and died, is clear from the frequent occurrence of coprolites, of splintered and 

 gnawed bones, and of the teeth of young individuals. Referring to the state of the 

 bones in the Robin Hood Cave, Boyd Dawkins 8 says : " With few exceptions the solid 

 bones are alone perfect, the long bones containing marrow, and the vertebrae being 

 represented merely by gnawed fragments. All the lower jaws have lost their angles 

 and coronoid processes, and the number of teeth stands in a greater ratio to the number 

 of bones than would have been the case had not their possessors fallen a prey to a bone- 



1 ' Amer. Nat.,' xvii, p. 243. 3 'Beitr. Pal. Osterreicli-TJiigarns,' iii, p. 25. 



3 'Amer. Nat.,' xxvi, p. 1028. * ' Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Philatf.,' 1895, p. 446. 



5 'Zool. Kecord,' 1895, p. 28. 



Hyiena aniiqua, Lankester, 'Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist.,' ser. 3, vol. xiii, 1864, p. 56, pi. viii, figs. 

 5, 6, from Bed Crag, Suffolk. 



7 ' Gcol. Mag.,' 1883, p. 433. » « q. j. Q eo ] t goc.,' xxx ii, p . 245. 



