258 
MELLO : CRESWELL CAVES. 
infested the forests of the neighbourhood would reign supreme at 
Cresvvell ; the most numerous being the Hyenas, which with 
Rhinoceroses, Horses and Reindeer, far outnumbered the other 
animals. Remains of Hyenas occur of all ages, from the cub just 
cutting its permanent teeth, to the decrepit veteran with mere 
stumps worn down nearly to the gums ; that the Hyenas were to a 
great extent the masters of the Caves is proved by the gnawed state 
of a very large number of the bones of the other animals found, not 
merely of the Reindeer and the Horse, but even those of such 
powerful antagonists as the Woolly Rhinoceros and the Mammoth, 
which would occasionally be overcome by sheer force of numbers, 
or attacked at a disadvantage and driven over the crags, at the 
foot of which, maimed and disabled, they would fall an easy prey to 
their cowardly foes. 
Amongst the larger Carnivora whose remains have been found 
at Creswell were the Lion, several of the teeth of which as well as 
other bones were met with, the Leopard, and two species or sub- 
species of Bears, the brown bear and the grizzly. A wild Cat of 
large size was also present, whilst the Glutton, Fox, and Wolf have 
been previously mentioned ; but the most formidable of all was the 
great sabre-toothed Tiger, the Machairodus latidens. Kent's Hole 
is the only Cavern in this country where the remains have been 
previously found, but its teeth have been met with in the 
forest bed in Norfolk, and also in two localities in France. 
This animal appears to have survived from the Pliocene age, when 
together with another species, the " Cultridens," it was an in- 
habitant of N. Western Europe. At Creswell, in the Robin Hood 
Cave, a fine and well preserved crown of a large canine tooth was 
found ; its mineral condition and colour totally forbid the hy- 
pothesis that it was derived either in ancient or modern times from 
any foreign locality ; all the known remains of this animal, whether 
from the forest bed or continental Pliocenes, being of a different 
colour to this tooth, and in a very different state of preservation ; 
whilst this specimen agrees in every respect of preservation and 
colour with the other Pleistocene teeth found in the Creswell 
