1896.] Distribution of Batrachia and Reptilia. 1003 
Asaph, the bones are in a similarly pulverulent state and pro- 
duce clouds as they are disturbed. In a cave at Banwell in 
the Mendip Hills, England, thousands of bones of bison, horse 
and reindeer were taken out of a red silt which filled the cave 
to its roof. The entire deposit has been introduced by water 
through a vertical fissure which opened on the surface. In 
the Hyena Den, at Wookey Hole, “the organic remains were 
in all stages of decay, some crumbling to dust at the touch, 
while others were perfectly preserved and had lost very little 
of their gelatine.” In an arm or section of this same cavern 
according to Dawkins, “ most of the bones were as soft as wet 
mortar,” an interesting statement which throws light upon the 
probable state of maceration which bones attain before disap- 
pearance by trituration or solution. The mineralization of 
the bones in the various caves, so patiently explored, presents 
striking differences. In some the bone seems reduced to the 
last stages of cohesion, while in others it has become filled with 
carbonate of lime or partially silicified, and attains a consid- 
erable gravity. 
(To be continued.) 
THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF BATRA- 
CHIA AND REPTILIA IN NORTH AMERICA. 
By E. D. Copt. 
(Continued from page 902.) 
III. THE EASTERN SUBREGION. 
The fauna of Batrachia and Reptilia of this subregion is 
characterized by what it lacks as much as by what it possesses. 
The number of species which oceupy its entire extent exclu- 
judge from the air which was perfectly saturated with the pungent smell of cer- 
tain animals, as well as from the traces of a lion impressed on the impalpable 
powder which covered the ground, where we met with a few quills of the Hystrix 
africana.” 
