﻿MACH^ERODUS LATIDENS. 189 



"We now returned," he writes, "to the excavation (in the ' Wolfs Passage'), which 

 produced the Wolf's head. The stalagmite was about a foot and a half thick, and of 

 excessive hardness, in which were imbedded rocky fragments rolled down the slope ; but 

 as we advanced inwards, the stalagmite became altogether free from foreign admixture 

 and moulded itself upon the mass of bones. Of the quantity and condition of the remains 

 here it is scarcely possible to give a just idea without appearing to exaggerate. They were 

 so thickly packed together that to avoid injuring them we were obliged to lay aside the 

 picks and to grub them out with our fingers. They had suffered considerably from 

 pressure after having first undergone violence from the force which impelled and congre- 

 gated them in this narrow neck. They were found driven into the interstices of the 

 opposite wall, or piled in the greatest confusion against its side, with but a scanty covering 

 of soil, and that of the finest and softest sand intermixed with greasy earth. To enumerate 

 the amount of fossils collected from this spot would be to give the inventory of half my 

 collection, comprising all the genera and their species including the cultridens, there were 

 hoards ; but I must specify the jaws and tusks of the Elephant, with the teeth in the 

 sockets, and the bone of which was so bruised, that it fell to powder in our endeavour to 

 extract it, a rare instance of the teeth occurring in their jaws or gums- The same may be 

 observed of the jaws of the Rhinoceros, one portion alone of which was saved, but the 

 teeth of both were numerous and entire. The teeth of the Elk, Horse, Hysena, were taken 

 out whole ; the teeth of the two last were gathered in thousands, and in the midst of all 

 were myriads of Rodentia. The earth, as may be expected, was saturated with animal 

 matter ; it was, to use the expressive words of my fellow-labourer Walsh, fat with the 

 marrow and sinews of more wild beasts than would have peopled all the menageries in 

 the world." 



§ 7. Continental Range of Species. — Such as this is the evidence of the sojourn of the 

 formidable Machcerodm latidens in the Cave of Kent's Hole. The proof that the species 

 lived also on the Continent of Europe is due to the discovery of an upper incisor in every 

 respect identical with figs. 1, 2, in a deposit near Puy, in Auvergne, by M. Aymard, which is 

 doubtfully considered " diluvium" by M. Gervais, 1 and most probably belongs to the Upper 

 Pleiocene, or the passage beds between the Pleiocene and Pleistocene formations. M. 

 Gervais 2 has also recently determined the existence of the same species in the Cavern of 

 Baume, which M. Lartet considers to be of preglacial age, 4 in the Jura, associated with 

 horse, ox, wild boar, elephant, and a non-tichorhine species of rhinoceros, the cave bear, 

 and the cave hyaena. 3 The two teeth of Machserodus are a lower canine (? upper incisor), 

 and a portion of the lower sectorial, both of which have serrated edges. The serration in 



1 'Zool. et Paleont. Francaises,' 1859, p. 231. 



2 Gervais, ' Animaux vertebre's vivants et fossiles,' 4to, 1867-9, p. 78, pi. xviii, 3, 3a, 36. 



3 'Congres Internationale d' Anthropologic et d'Archeologie Prehistoriques,' Paris volume, p. 269. 



4 M. Lartet considers the rhinoceros to be non-tichorhine. 



