198 The Rev. Mr. Buckland’s account of Fossil Teeth and 
thither (see Plate XXI. fig. 1 to 6, and 8 to 10.). On the one 
hand, the cave is in general of dimensions so contracted (often 
not exceeding three feet in diameter), that it is impossible 
that living animals of these species could have found an en- 
trance, or the entire carcases of dead ones been floated into 
it ; moreover, had the bones been washed in, they would pro- 
bably have been mixed with pebbles and rounded equably by 
friction, which they are not : on the other hand, it is foreign to 
the habits of the hyasna to prey on the larger pachydermata, 
their young perhaps excepted. No other solution of the 
difficulty presents itself to me, than that the remains in ques- 
tion are those of individuals that died a natural death ; for 
though an hyaena would neither have had strength to kill a 
living elephant or rhinoceros, or to drag home the entire car- 
case of a dead one, yet he could carry away, piecemeal, or 
acting conjointly with others, fragments of the most bulky 
animals that died in the course of nature, and thus introduce 
them to the inmost recesses of his den. 
Should it be asked why, amidst the remains of so many 
hundred animals, not a single skeleton of any kind has been 
found entire, we see an obvious answer, in the power and 
known habit of hysenas to devour the bones of their prey; 
and the gnawed fragments on the one hand, and album 
grascum on the other, afford double evidence of their having 
largely gratified this natural propensity : the exception of 
the teeth and numerous small bones of the lower joints and 
extremities, that remain unbroken, as having been too hard 
and solid to afford inducement for mastication, is entirely 
consistent with this solution. And should it be further asked, 
why we do not find, at least, the entire skeleton of the one or 
