158 
ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY. 
longing to individuals of every age, were detected. The 
species {Hymna spelcea) has been considered by palaeontolo¬ 
gists as extinct; it was larger than the fierce Hymna crocuta 
of South Africa, which it closely resembled, and of which it 
is regarded by Mr. Boyd Dawkins as a variety. Dr. Buck-t 
land, after carefully examining the spot, proved that the hy-1 
aenas must have lived there; a fact attested by the quantity 
of their dung, which, as in the case of the living hyaena, is of 
nearly the same composition as bone, and almost as durable. 
In the cave were found the remains of the ox, young ele¬ 
phant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, horse, bear, wolf, hare, 
water-rat, and several birds. All the bones have the ap¬ 
pearance of having been broken and gnawed by the teeth 
of the hyaenas; and they occur confusedly mixed in loam 
or mud, or dispersed through a crust of stalagmite which 
covers it. In these and many other cases it is supposed that 
portions of herbivorous quadrupeds have been dragged into 
caverns by beasts of prey, and have served as their food— 
an opinion quite consistent with the known habits of the liv¬ 
ing hyaena. 
Australian Gare-hreccias ,—Ossiferous breccias are not con¬ 
fined to Europe, but occur in all parts of the globe; and 
those discovered in fissures and caverns in Australia corre¬ 
spond closely in character with what has been called the 
bony breccia of the Mediterranean, in which the fragments 
of bone and rock are firmly bound together by a red ochre- 
ous cement. ^ 
Some of these caves were examined by the late Sir T. 
Mitchell in the Wellington Valley, about 210 miles west of 
Fig. 91. 
Part of lower jaw of Macropus atlas. Owen. A young individual of an extinct species. 
a. Permanent false molar, in the alveolus. 
