﻿156 PLEISTOCENE MAMMALTA. 



the supposition that the animal remains have not been examined; and consequently the 

 range of the animal through Britain, so far as extant evidence goes, is fairly represented, 

 although, of course, it may be modified from time to time by future discoveries. Its 

 metropolis was West Somerset, where it was incredibly numerous ; thence it ranged 

 throughout England as far as the North Riding of Yorkshire, being very rare in propor- 

 tion to the other animals living at the time. Its absence from Scotland, Cumberland, and 

 Westmoreland, and its extreme rarity in North Wales, may be accounted for by the fact 

 that the mountains in those districts were crowned by glaciers during the Post-glacial 

 epoch, which would necessarily involve a climate unfitted for the great development of 

 the Herbivora in regions much broken up into hill and valley, and the consequent absence 

 of the Carnivores. In Scotland, at least, there is no other hypothesis that will account 

 for the absence of every animal that can be ascribed to the Post-glacial group, excepting the 

 Mammoth, which has been found in a few places, and which has been proved by the 

 Siberian discoveries to have been capable of existing in the zone o*f vegetation represented 

 by the Scotch Fir. If it be objected to this view that the Reindeer flourished in count- 

 less herds in a Siberian and North-American climate at least as severe as that of the 

 Post-glacial winter in Britain, it may be answered that in Siberia and North America, 

 where animal life is so abundant, the country consists of plains elevated but little above 

 the sea-level, and capable of affording good pasturage in the short arctic summer, while 

 in Scotland, Wales, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, the broken nature of the ground 

 could not ever have admitted of the growth of feed for a large body of Herbivores. 



The animal also has not been found in Ireland, most probably because only one of the 

 numerous caves of that country has been properly explored, the energies of collectors 

 being directed towards the acquisition of prehistoric remains from the turbaries and alluvia. 



§ 2. Mammals associated with the Cave Lion in Britain. — In the following table we 

 have given a list of all the fossil animals associated with the Cave Lion in the bone-caves 

 and river-deposits of Great Britain. The varieties Cervus BucMandi of Professor Owen 

 and Cervus Guetlardi of Baron Cuvier are included under the general specific name of 

 Cervus tarandus ; and Strongyloceros spelaus of the former under Cervus elaphus. Bquus 

 fossilis is also intended to include Bquus asinus, which, up to the present time, has not 

 been proved to have lived in North-Western Europe during the Post-glacial epoch. 

 Blephas antiquus also is intended to include Blephas priscus, a name which the author of 

 the species, Dr. Falconer, gave up during the last years of his life. 1 The Rhinoceros lepto- 

 rhinus of Owen is used as the exact equivalent of the Rhinoceros hemitcBchus of Dr. 

 Falconer, and of what M. Lartet 2 takes to be represented by the R. Merclrii of Dr. Kaup. 

 Witli the exception of the lists of animals from Long Hole, Northhill Tor, Spritsail Tor, 

 and Cefn Caves, for which we are indebted to Dr. Falconer, all the species have been 

 determined by a personal examination of the remains. 



1 ' Palseontological Memoirs,' 8vo, vol. ii, pp. 251, 592, 18G8. 



2 'Ann. des Sc. Nat.,' 5 e ser. Zool. et Paleont., torn, viii, p. 157, et seq. 



