﻿xxii INTRODUCTION. 



the great pest of the fur-hunters of North America and Siberia, has left traces of its 

 presence in Britain in Banwell and Bleadon caverns, and also in a cavern at Gower. It 

 is very abundant in the Pleistocene caverns of Liege, and occurs also in the famous Bear's 

 Den at Gailenreuth. 



Genus Mustela. Species Mustela erminea, Linn. — The identification of the ermine 

 or stoat as a British Pleistocene mammal we owe to our great palaeontologist, Professor 

 Owen. 1 It has been discovered by Mr. Bartlett in the cave at Berry Head, near Plymouth* 

 and by Mr. MacEnery in Kent's Hole. 



Species Mustela putorius, Linn. — The skull of the fossil polecat, obtained, like that 

 of the preceding species, from Berry Head, and figured by Professor Owen, 2 is identical 

 with that of the living Mustela putorius. Dr. Schmerling has proved the existence of this 

 species in the caverns of Liege. 



Species Mustela martes, Linn. — In the Williams' collection from the Mendip Caverns 

 is a skull and lower jaw imbedded in breccia which we can by no means differentiate from 

 the marten-cat that is now rapidly becoming extinct in Britain. 



No species of this genus has up to this time been found in a river-deposit. 



Genus Lutra. Species Lutra vulgaris, Erxl. — From the aquatic habits of the otter 

 we should naturally expect to find few traces of its presence in the bone-caves, many in 

 the river-deposits. Yet but three cases have come to our knowledge of its occurrence in 

 association with the extinct mammalia — the one in Kent's Hole Cavern, and the second 

 in the brick-earths of Grays Thurrock, in Essex, the third from Banwell, and is preserved 

 in the Taunton Museum. The specimens figured and described by Professor Owen are 

 derived from the Prehistoric marls that underlie the peat of Cambridgeshire. 



Genus Meles. Species Meles taxus, Linn. — No trace of the badger (Meles taxus) 

 has been afforded by Pleistocene river-deposits. The caverns of Banwell, Kent's Hole, 

 Berry Head, and Wookey Hole, have furnished ample proof of its presence among the 

 Pleistocene cave-fauna, where, however, it does not seem to have been abundant. In the 

 caverns of Prehistoric age, on the other hand, the occurrence of its remains is the rule 

 rather than the exception. It is indistinguishable in species from that which abounds at 

 the present day in the limestone caves of Somersetshire. 



Genus Ursus. Species Ursus spelmus, Goldfuss. — The remains of the fossil bears 

 have been a fruitful source of dispute among naturalists since the days of Goldfuss. Their 

 variations are so great and marked that to the person who has confined himself to the 

 study of those derived from some one locality there is not the slightest difficulty in divid- 

 ing them into species, while, on the other hand, those who have compared the French, 

 German, and British specimens gradually realise the fact that the fossil remains of the bears 

 form a graduated series in which all the variations that at first sight appear specific vanish 

 away. In the very large number of bears' skulls from our own caves and those of France 



1 Op. cit, 2 Op. cit. 



