434 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
of blue and red clay, and the rounded and water- worn frag- 
ments of the parent rock. The fossil fauna hitherto discovered 
in the Maltese caves, rents, and alluvial deposits, comprise 
the Hippopotamus Pentlandi } so plentiful also in the Sicilian 
caves, and perhaps another species, very closely allied if not 
identical with an existent species found in West Africa; two, 
and perhaps three extinct elephants, two of which are of pigmy 
dimensions, the other equal to a small-sized African elephant 
with the molars presenting a crown pattern similar to that 
of H. antiquus , although its teeth are relatively much 
smaller. The dormice ( Myoxina ) are represented by an animal 
larger than a Guinea-pig, and found in incredible numbers 
associated with the elephant ; also a river tortoise, which must 
have stood nearly two feet in height. A smaller species of the 
latter was found in the inland cave just referred to. Birds' 
bones were very numerous, and comprised several species, 
chiefly large raptores, and water-birds; among the latter, 
abundant remains of one or more species of swan, nearly one- 
half larger than the Cygnus olor , were found along with the 
elephantine and rodent remains. The hippopotamus exuvise 
invariably occupied distinct caverns on the sides of ravines and 
sea cliffs, and from the mode of arrangement of the bones and 
teeth indicated the presence of tumultuous currents having at 
one time passed down the ravines and entered the caverns. The 
same appearances seem to pervade the river-horse remains in the 
Sicilian caves. It is not, therefore, easy to account for these 
enormous accumulations of the carcases of such huge animals 
in so small a space, unless we suppose that hundreds had con- 
gregated in their dens and met their death by some unnatural 
cause or causes. Hot as might be the case with the aged 
individuals resorting to such places to die ; but, on the con- 
trary, almost every vestige of growth, from the new-born calf 
to the adult, is represented among the relics of these ancient 
caves. The bones and teeth are strewn about in the greatest 
possible disorder, but in general not so much fractured or 
water- worn as might have been the case had they been rudely 
rolled about with the hard pebbles among which they are found 
embedded. In the deposit of one rock cavity, about twenty 
feet by forty feet in breadth, we counted the straight tusks of 
no less than thirty individual river-horses,* and, representing, 
as they did, nearly every stage of growth, were surely significant 
so far that the animals did not all die from the usual decay of 
nature ; and unless we suppose a scourging pestilence affecting 
* This estimate is no doubt much within the truth, as the greater portion 
of the teeth and bones were carried off by the curious long before the author’s 
arrival at the spot. 
