﻿MACHiERODUS LATIDENS. 191 



To which, then, of these two periods of accumulation of cave-earth in Kent's Hole can 

 the Machserodus be referred ? Was it living at the time of the older deposit, and did it 

 become extinct before the newer had been formed ? It is impossible to give a distinct 

 answer to these questions ; but a careful examination of all the circumstances tends to 

 the belief that the older period was that to which the Machserodus belongs. Since it is 

 a species which differs but slightly from the M. cultridens, and belonging to a genus 

 which inhabited Europe in the Meiocene and Pleiocene ages, its affinities are undoubtedly 

 Pleiocene, and it belongs to a group of animals that inhabited Europe before the lowering 

 of the temperature brought about the invasion of the Arctic Mammalia from the north 

 and the east. On the other hand, in the teeth-marks on the incisors figured, as well as 

 on the canines, we recognise the unmistakable traces that the animal to which they 

 belonged fell a prey to the Hyena; 1 and since the Pleistocene Hyaena crocuta 

 (var. spelcea) is abundant in the cave, to its teeth the marks in question may pro- 

 bably be referred. It seems, therefore, to us, to be almost certain that the animal 

 inhabited Devonshire during an early stage of the Pleistocene, and most probably before 

 the Arctic invaders had taken full possession of the valley of the English Channel, and 

 of the low grounds which now lie within the hundred-fathom line along the Atlantic shore 

 of western France. Along a great, fertile, low-lying region, which then was offered by 

 what is now the bed of the sea, there must necessarily have been a swinging to and fro 

 of animal life ; and before the temperature of France had been sufficiently lowered to 

 exterminate or drive out the southern forms, it is most natural to suppose that in warm 

 seasons some of the southern Mammalia would find their way northwards, and especially 

 a formidable Carnivore such as the Machserodus. The extreme rarity of its remains 

 forbids the hypothesis that it was a regular inhabitant of Britain during the Pleistocene 

 age. It seems, therefore, to us that it belongs to the earliest stage in the complicated 

 history of the deposits in Kent's Hole, and that it probably became extinct before the 

 great majority of Pleistocene caves in Great Britain had been filled with their present 

 contents. 



This view of the extreme antiquity of Machgerodus in Kent's Hole is materially 

 strengthened by an animal which has been determined by Professor Busk among the 

 Mammalia from the fissures of Oreston, near Plymouth. The Rhinoceros from that cave, 

 considered by Professor Owen to belong to the tichorhine species, so common in the 

 Pleistocene period, turns out to belong to the megarhine, which is a well-known Pleio- 

 cene species. In that case, also, it is evident that the Southern forms of life still 

 lingered on the British side of the valley of the English Channel, while the Pleistocene 

 Mammalia were the normal dwellers in the British caves. 



Both these animals, therefore, may be taken to indicate an early stage in the Pleisto- 



1 The Rev. J. MacEnery made the same remarks on the gnawed condition of the canines. MSS., 

 op. cit. 



