﻿INTRODUCTION. xix 



§ 9. Pleistocene Mammalia. — The remains from the British caverns and river-deposits 

 of Pleistocene age, determined according to the principles given above, present us with at 

 least fifty -three species of fossil mammals, of which some are now extinct, some banished to 

 remote parts of the earth, while others still survive in our forests, rivers, and moorlands. 



§ 9, a. Bimana, Homo. — The presence of man among the Pleistocene fauna is now 

 so universally recognised that there is no necessity for further evidence upon the point 

 being adduced. Prom the river-gravels of Bedford, Hoxne, the Brick-earth of Pisherton, 

 near Salisbury, and a large number of other places, 1 have been derived the rude flint im- 

 plements which Messrs. Evans and Prestwich have no hesitation in considering of the same 

 age as the gravels themselves, which frequently contain the remains of mammoth, bear, and 

 other Pleistocene mammalia. The caverns of Brixham, Kent's Hole, Gower, and Tenby, have 

 afforded the rude implements used by the Pleistocene savages in association with the 

 remains of the great carnivora. In the cavern of Wookey Hole also his rude handiwork 

 of flint, chert, and bone, and the ashes of his fires, occurred under circumstances that 

 admit of no doubt upon the subject. 



§ 9, b. Cheiroptera. — The remains of bats found in the ossiferous caverns, as Pro- 

 fessor Owen 2 very justly remarks, cannot be differentiated from those of the species still 

 inhabiting the districts in which they occur; and from the fact of the species often still 

 inhabiting the caverns in which its remains are found, there is a possibility of the latter 

 not being of the same date as those of the associated mammalia. The same objection 

 applies equally to the remains of the badger and fox, which, beyond all doubt, have been 

 proved to have been Pleistocene mammals. The balance of probability is, on the whole, 

 in favour of the Cheiroptera having lived at the same time as the extinct Pleistocene 

 mammalia ; but there is no absolute proof. Professor Owen describes Vespertilio noctula 

 as occurring in a fissure in a Mendip bone-cavern, and a lower jaw of the Greater Horse- 

 shoe Bat {Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum) is figured by Scharf among the fossils from 

 Kent's Hole. 3 



§ 9, c. Carnivora. Genus Machairodus, Kaup. Species Machairodus latidens, Owen. 

 — The fact that, out of all the numerous places in which the remains of Pleistocene mammalia 

 occur in Britain, but one, Kent's Hole Cavern, should have furnished traces of this most 

 remarkable Pliocene carnivore, caused the late Dr. Falconer to consider it of a different 

 date to the other fossil mammalia in the cavern. The condition, however, of the teeth in 

 question, and their intimate association with the other remains, 4 the absence of all traces 



1 'Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' 1856—65. 2 Tom. cit., p. 11 et seq. 



3 See the beautful folio plates published in 1859, Torquay. 



* ' Cavern Researches,' by the late Rev. J. MacEnery, F.G.S.,' edited by E. Vivian, Esq., London, 1859, 

 8vo, pp. 32-3. — " To enumerate the amount of fossils collected from this spot would be to give the 



