PICKERING. 
3S0 
Brookes and Mr. Clift, whofefkillin comparative anatomy 
is well known : the former being the proprietor of one 
of the firft private collections in Europe, and the latter 
the confervator of the incomparable niufeum of the late 
John Hunter, now incorporated with that of the Royal 
College of Surgeons. 
On the removal of the mud, the bottom of the cave 
was found to be ftrewed over like a dog-kennel, from one 
end to the other, with the teeth and bones, or rather the 
broken and fplintered fragments of bones, of all the 
animals above enumerated ; thofe of the elephant, rhino¬ 
ceros, and other large animals, being found co-extenfively 
with all the reft, even in the inmoft and fmalleft recedes. 
Scarcely a bone had efcaped fraCture. On many of them 
were traced marks which, on applying one to the other, 
appeared exaCtly to fit the form of the canine teeth of the 
liyrena that occur in the cave, as if they had been gnawed 
by thefe animals ; thofe of the hyaena themfelves being 
equally gnawed with the reft. In all the jaws, both teeth 
and bone are in an equal ftate of high prefervation, and 
indicate that their fradure has been theeffeCl of violence, 
and not of natural decay. The greateft number of teeth 
are thofe of hyaenas, oxen, and deer; of the canine teeth 
of the hyaena, more than 300 were collected by one per- 
fon. From the fize of the teeth of the tiger, the animal 
muft have equalled or exceeded the largeft lion or Bengal 
tiger. The tufk of the bear refembles thofe of the extinCl 
Urfus fpelaeus of the caves of Germany, a creature, which, 
according to Cuvier, could not be inferior in bulk to a 
large horfe. The number of elephants’ teeth that have 
been found does not exceed ten, and they are all fmall ; 
of the hippopotamus fix molar teeth, and a few fragments 
of the canine and inciforteeth, only, have been met with ; 
of the rhinoceros more, and fome of them extremely 
large; a few only belonging to the horfe. The teeth, 
however, which occur in the greateft abundance, are thofe 
of the water-rat; in almoft every fpecimen of the offeous 
breccia are teeth or broken fragments of the bones of 
this little animal, mixed with, and adhering to, the 
fragments of the larger bones; a circumftance which leads 
the profeffbr to conclude that they may have abounded 
on the edge of the lake which he conceives to have 
exifted in the neighbourhood, and to which ftate, as we 
have before obferved, a dam thrown acrofs the gorge 
would ftill reftore the Vale of Pickering. There is little 
doubt, indeed, that moft of the valleys which now exift, 
and whole waters efcape through ravines or gorges in 
their furrounding hills, were once lakes; a fuppolition 
that derives confiderable fupport from the remains of the 
hippopotamus fo frequently found in the diluvial gravel 
of England, and of various parts of the continent of 
Europe. 
The following paflage is extremely curious, and places, 
as we conceive, the faCt which Mr. Buckland endeavours 
to eftablilh beyond the reach of cavil. “ It muft already 
appear probable, from the faCts above defcribed, particu¬ 
larly from the comminuted ftate and apparently-gnawed 
condition of the bones, that the cave at Kirkdale was, 
during a long fucceflion of years, inhabited by hyaenas, 
and that they dragged into its recedes the other animal 
bodies whofe remains are found mixed indifcriminately 
•with their own; and this conjecture is rendered almoft 
certain by the difcovery I made of the many fmall balls 
of the folid calcareous excrement of an animal that has 
been fed on bones, refembling the fubftance known in the 
old Materia Medica by the name of album Gracum; its 
external form is that of a fphere irregularly comprefled, 
as in the faeces of a flieep, and varying from half an inch 
to an inch in diameter; its colour is yellowith-white, its 
fraCture is ufually earthy and compaCl, refembling ftalac- 
tite, and fometimes granular; when compact, it is inter- 
fperfed with minute cellular cavities ; it was at firft fight 
recognifed by the keeper of the menagerie at Exeter 
Change, as refembling, both in form and appearance, the 
faeces of the cape or fpotted hyaena, which he ftated to be 
greedy of bones beyond any other bead under his care. 
This information I owe to Dr. Wollafton, who has alfo 
made an analyfis of the fubftance under difcuftion, and 
finds it to be compofed of the ingredients that might be 
expeCted in faecal matter derived from bones; viz. phof- 
phate of lime, carbonate of lime, and a very fmall propor¬ 
tion of the triple phofphate of ammonia and magnefia ; 
it retains no animal matter; and its originally earthly 
nature and affinity to bone, will account for its perfeCt 
ftate of prefervation. I do not know wlvat more conclu- 
five evidence than this can be added to the faCts already 
enumerated, to fliow that the hyaenas inhabited this cave, 
and were the agents by which the teeth and bones 
of the other animals were there collected.” 
That the Kirkdale hyaenas were in the habit of de¬ 
vouring the carcaffes of their deceafed companions, and 
probably, in times of great urgency, not waiting for that 
event, we can readily conceive, as being quite confident 
with the character of the fpecies (two we believe) which 
ftill exilt; we have therefore no difficulty in fubfcribing 
to the inference contained in the following paflage. 
“ The ftrength of the hyaena’s jaw is fuch, that in attack¬ 
ing a dog, he begins by biting off his leg at a fingle fnap. 
The capacity of his teeth for fuch an operation is fuffi- 
ciently obvious from fimple infpeCtion, and had long ago: 
attracted the attention of the early naturalifts; and con¬ 
fident with this ftrength of teeth and jaw is the ftate of 
the niufcles of his neck, being fo full and ftrong, that in 
early times this animal was fabled to have but one cervi¬ 
cal vertebra.” And again, “it has been obferved, when 
fpeaking of the den, that the bones of the hyaenas are 
as much broken to pieces as thofe of the animals that 
formed their prey; and hence we muft infer, that the 
carcaffes even of the hyaenas themfelves were eaten up. 
by their furvivors. Whether it be the habit of modern 
hyaenas to devour thofe of their own fpecies that die in 
the courfe of nature, or, under the preffure of extreme 
hunger, to kill and eat the weaker of them, is a point on 
which it is not poffible to obtain pofitive evidence. Mr. 
Brown however afferts, in his journey to Darfur, that it 
is related, that, upon one of the hyaenas being wounded, 
his companions inftantly tear him to pieces and devour 
him. It feems therefore in the higher degree probable, 
that the mangled relics of hyaenas that lie indifcriminately 
fcattered, and equally broken with the bones of other 
animals in the cave of Kirkdale, were reduced to this ftate 
by the agency of the furviving individuals of their own 
fpecies.” 
The editor of the Quarterly Review, in his remarks 
on this paflage, obferves, “ The profeffor will not be 
difpleafed to find that we can produce a fa Cl that ftrongly 
corroborates his conjecture. In the menagerie of the 
Jardin des Plantes, at Paris, was an old hytena, which 
broke its leg by accident. One night, before the bone 
was united, the creature actually bit off his own leg, and 
it was difcovered in the morning that he had eaten it up, 
bone and all. It is not therefore furprifing that not 
a fingle fkull Ihould have remained entire in the cave of. 
Kirkdale,-all thefe having been broken up, as the profef¬ 
for obferves, to extraCl the brains and marrow ; while the 
bones of the bears in the caves of Germany, in which they 
lived and died in fuccellive generations, are moftly in a 
perfeCt ftate.” 
We fee nothing ridiculous, as the profeffor apprehends 
may be the cafe with fome of his readers, in the idea of 
hyaenas eating water-rats, or indeed any other animal. 
If our largeft dogs will feed on rats, jackalls on mice, 
and foxes on frogs, why fhould the omnivorous ftomach 
of a hyaena rejeCl fo delicate a morfel as that of a water- 
rat ? Doubts far more difficult of folution than this will 
arife on the perufal of Mr. Buckland’s paper. It will 
be afked, for inftance, and naturally enough, how came 
the carcafes of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hip¬ 
popotamus, into a cave fo contracted as fcarcely to admit 
a man creeping on all fours? or, how could the hyama 
contrive 
