800 Dr Fleming on the Influence of Society cm the 
bones, left in small angular fragments, have led Professor Buck- 
land, in his interesting work, “ Reliquiae Diluviancef to con- 
clude, that the cave had long been occupied as a den by this 
animal, which had carried into it the remains of its prey. The 
valuable notices which Dr Knox gives ( Wern . Mem. vol. iv. 
p. 885.) of the habits of the Cape hyasna, in which he states, 
that that species never carries off the bones or carcases it preys 
on, into dens, have been supposed to be hostile to the conclusion 
to which we have referred. The objection would be formi- 
dable, if it applied to the individuals of a species , but is with- 
out force in reference to the species of a genus. Our know- 
ledge of the habits of the hare would not qualify us for specu- 
lating safely concerning those of the rabbit, and the same re- 
mark applies to the raven and rook, — the swallow and sand- 
martin. Each species possesses peculiar habits, and is influen- 
ced in its physical distribution by peculiar laws. The Kirkdale 
hyaena is a different species from those of Africa, and is now ex- 
tinct. It may have had different habits ; its physical distribu- 
tion has been different. The dispersion of its remains through- 
out Europe, proves the latter ; the appearances of the Kirkdale 
Cave, intimate the former *. 
In the Cave of Hutton, in the Mendip Hills, connected with 
an open fissure, the remains of the elephant, horse, oxen, two 
species of deer, skeleton of a fox nearly complete, large bear, 
* Mr Goldfass, in an article on the fossil lion and tiger, adduces a remarkable 
passage of a German poem of the thirteenth century, entitled Neibelungen, in 
which a great hunt is described, where, and independently of the elk, the bison , 
the urus , the stag, the boar , the bear, mention is made of a lion , and of two ani- 
mals, of which the one is named schelch , and the other the halbwolf, a term which 
signifies half-wolf. The schelch occurring in the same strophe with the elk, the 
bison, the urus, and the stag, all of them large ruminating animals, M. Goldfuss 
supposes the poet had in view the great elk ( Cervus gigantcus ), which he thinks 
might also have been the animal of the Hercynian Forest indicated by Caesar 
(Bell. Gall. lib. vi. c. xxvi.) under the name of bull , with the figure of a stag , of 
which the male and female carried on the forehead a single horn, divided into branches 
like a hand. With regard to the halbwolf, this naturalist is of opinion that the 
hyaena is meant by it, not that he believes that at the time of the Niebelungen these 
animals still existed in Germany, but he supposes that the poet had learnt its for- 
mer existence from tradition. This statement we consider to be interesting as 
tending to support the view given by Dr Fleming in his able memoir.— Edit. 
