﻿FELIS SPELiEA. 161 



by M. Lartet. 1 It has also been discovered in the caves of Bruniquel and Les Eyzies and 

 in the Rock-shelter of the Madelaine under circumstances which prove that it inhabited 

 France while the stone-using primeval hunters lived in the country, and engraved 

 the objects of their chase on fragments of Reindeer antler, and tusks of Mammoth. 

 In the extreme south it is quoted by Baron Cuvier from the bone-breccia of Nice. 

 It occurs also in the river- deposits of Tour de Boulade (Puy de Dome), of Abbeville 

 (Somme), of Paris (Seine), of Soute by Pons (Charente Inferieure), and other localities. 

 Throughout Belgium and Germany it occurs more or less abundantly, and espe- 

 cially in the caves, such as those of Liege, Goffontaine, Gailenreuth, Schartzfeldt, 

 Altenstein, and Sundwig. The first case on record of its discovery is that by Dr. John 

 Hain in the Carpathians in 1672, which is also very valuable because it is the most 

 southern point in central Europe in which its remains have been found. 



Up to the present time the animal has not been found in Spain, most probably because 

 so few bone-caves have been explored in that country. In Italy it is proved by the dis- 

 coveries of M. Ceselli 2 to have been living in the neighbourhood of Rome, while the 

 volcanos of that district were active. In Sicily, the labours of Dr. Falconer 3 in the 

 Grotto of Maccagnone have resulted in the proof that it inhabited the island along 

 with Man, the Hyaena, Hippopotamus, and Elephas antiquus. 



Thus there is proof that the animal ranged throughout France and Germany, as far 

 south as the basin of the Upper Danube, and throughout Italy as far as the extreme 

 point of Sicily. It has not, up to the present time, been discovered in Scandinavia, 

 Denmark, or Prussia. 



There is no reason to believe that any of the deposits in which it occurs through- 

 out this great area are of other than Post-glacial or Quaternary date. Nevertheless, 

 it would be rash in the present state of our knowledge of the Pliocene Felidae of 

 those countries to affirm that the Cave Lion was not an inhabitant of Europe during the 

 Pliocene epoch. 



§ 5. Identity with Felis atrox {Leidy), of North America. — In 1852/ Dr. Leidy 

 figured and described a left mandible from the neighbourhood of Natchez, in Mississippi, 

 without angle or coronoid process, and enveloped in a coating of peroxide of iron which 

 could not be removed. Sufficient of it, however, was shown to enable Dr. Leidy 

 to recognise its leonine affinities, and to convince him that it belonged to an animal 

 specifically distinct from Felis leo, F. tiyris, or F. leo, var. a spelcea. The two points 

 that seemed to us in our examination of the figure to separate it from that of the Cave 



' 'Ann. des Sc. Nat.,' 1861, p. 1/7. 



2 ' Correspondance de Rome du 4 Mai,' 1867. 



3 Falconer, ' Palseontological Memoirs,' vol. ii, p. 550, 18C8. 



* "Description of an Extinct Species of American Lion," ' Trans. American Philos. Soc.,' Philadelphia, 

 n. s., vol. x, pp. 319—321, pi. 34. 



