381 
PICKERING. 
contrive to drag in fuel) huge mor.fters, of a fize ten times 
that of his own ? The difficulty is not got rid of by the 
fuppofition of their floating in by the flood, as the cavern 
moll probably exifted in the fame Hate, as to its dimen- 
iions, before that cataftrophe as now; and, even if 
floated in by detached pieces, they would, in that cafe, 
have been mixed with pebbles, and rounded by friftion, 
which they are not. Thefe objections have not efcaped 
Mr. Backhand; and the folution that prefents itfelf to 
his mind appears not improbable.; it is, that the remains 
of thofe larger animals were thofe of individuals that 
'died a natural death, and were carried away piece-meal 
by the hyaenas into their den. That, amidlt the remains 
of fo many hundred different animals, not a Angle (kele- 
ton (hould be found, is accounted for by the power and 
known habits of hyaenas to devour the bones of their 
prey; nor does our ingenious author conceive it incon- 
filtent with this folution, that the teeth and the fmall 
bones of the lower joints and extremities ffiould remain 
unbroken, thefe having been found too hard and folid to 
afford fufficient inducement for maftication. 
Still, however, it may be afked, Why do we not find at 
lead the entire fkeleton of one or more hyaenas, that died 
and left no furvivors to devour them ? Some more fatif- 
faftory folution is here expedited than that of the two 
Kilkenney cats, who ate each other up, and left only the 
two tails ; and the profeffor thinks he has fallen upon it, in 
the circumftance of the probable deltruiStion of the laid 
individual by the diluvial waters. “ On the rife of thefe,” 
he obferves, “ had there been any hyaenas in the den, 
they would have rulhed out and fled for fafety to the 
hills ; and, if abfent, they could by no poflibility have 
returned to it from the higher levels ; and that they did 
fo perilh on the continent is obvious from the difeovery 
of their bones in the diluvial gravel of Germany as well 
as in the caves.” In this idea the profeffor conceives 
he is borne out by the fubfequent difeovery of the 
entire lower jaw of the hyaena at Lawford, near Rugby, 
iri Warwickfliire, in the fame diluvial clay and gravel 
with the bones of the elephant and rhinoceros; the only 
indance, he tells us, of the remains of the hyaena being 
noticed in the diluvium of England. “ The animal,” 
he adds, “ mud have perilhed by the fame catadrophe 
which extirpated the hyaenas, and clofed the den of 
Kirk'dale, and which fwept together the remains of 
elephant, rhinoceros, and hyaena, in the diluvial gravel 
of the continent.” We will not contend this: but a 
more Ample folution is, that of fuppofing the hyaenas had 
previoufly abandoned this, and fought lome other, cave ; 
for why fliould they not change their lodging for 
convenience-fake, as well as we ? It is by no means 
neceffary to his conclufions to fuppofe that they conti¬ 
nued in the fame fpot till “the rains defeended, and 
the floods came.” It is fufficient to prove, what we think 
he has fucceeded in doing, that it had been their place 
of refidence for many generations. 
Since, then, the dimenfions of the cave would not 
admit the larger animals dead or alive, and no circum- 
ftances can be imagined under which the fmaller ones, as 
hyaenas, tigers, bears, wolves, foxes, horfes, oxen, deer, 
rabbits, water-rats, mice, weafels, and birds, would fpon- 
taneoully colleft together—Ance the capacity of the cave 
would not have contained a fufficient number of thefe 
fmaller ones to fupply one twentieth part of the teeth 
and bones on the fuppofition of their carcafes having 
been floated in by the waters of a flood—and Ance, had 
they been waflied in by a fucceffion of floods, there would 
have been found a fucceffion of beds of fediment and 
ftalaftite—we are willing to accept the only remaining 
hypothecs fuggefted by Mr. Buckland, that they have 
been dragged in for food by the hyaenas; and, as they 
could not be dragged from any very great diftance, we 
mull conclude with him, that they all lived and died not 
far from the fpot where their remains were found. In 
further corroboration of this being a hyaena’s den, he 
Vol. XX. No. J376. 
teeth difeovered in it are of various ages, from youth to 
mature old age ; fome difplacing the tirft teeth, and juft 
peeping out of the fockets, and lome fairly ground down 
to the jaw by perpetual gnawing. 
In this view of the cale, the accumulation of the bones 
in the cavern of Kirkdale mult have been the refult of a 
long procefs, at a time when all the animals in queflion 
were natives of this country. The profeffor obferves, 
that the general difperfion of fimilar bones through the 
diluvian gravel of high latitudes over great part of the 
northern hemifphere, fhowsthat the period in which they 
inhabited thefe regions was that immediately preceding 
the formation of this gravel, and that they perilhed by the 
fame waters which produced it. “ M. Cuvier,” he adds, 
“ has afeertained, that the foffi.1 elephant, rhinoceros, hip¬ 
popotamus, and hyaena, belong to fpecies now unknown ; 
and, as there is no evidence that they have, at any time 
fubfequent to the formation of the diluvium, exifted in 
thefe regions, we may'- conclude that the period at which 
the bones of thefe extinft fpecies were introduced into 
the cave at Kirkdale, was antediluvian.” 
In profecuting thefe refearches, it could not fail to 
ftrike the author, as it rnuft every one who confiders the 
fubjeft, as a moll curious fa ft, that four of the genera of 
animals whofe bones are fo widely diffufed over the tem¬ 
perate and even the polar regions of the northern hemif¬ 
phere, fliould at prefent exift only in tropical climates, 
and moftly to thefouthward of the equator; and that the 
only country on the face of the globe in which the ele¬ 
phant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the hyaena, 
are affociated, is Southern Africa, where they live and 
die together, as it appears they once did in Yorkfnire; 
and not only in Yorkfliire, but in various parts of Eng¬ 
land; at leall the remains of the larger animals have been 
found in caves and beds of gravel in Middlefex, Glamor- 
ganfliire, Somerfetlhire, Derbyftiire, Warwickfliire, and 
Devonlhire, though not always accompanied by thofe of 
hyaenas. 
Their hiftory, in fome of thefe inftances, is more diffi¬ 
cult of explanation than that of the cavern of Kirkdale. 
But a difficulty, and the greateft of all difficulties, now 
meets us, the folution of which Mr. B. does not attempt; 
we mean that of accounting for certain genera of animals 
once inhabiting a climate in which we know they cannot 
•now exift. M. Cuvier, it is true, fays, they belong to 
fpecies unknown at prefent; but that does not prove that 
their habits were at all different from thofe which are 
known. He alfo fays that, of the bones found in the va¬ 
rious caverns of Germany, three-fourths of the whole 
belong to two fpecies of bear, both of which are extinft, 
and two-thirds of the remainder to extinft hyaenas; but 
ante-diluvian bears and hyaenas, we apprehend, were 
pretty much the fame creatures as bears and hyaenas are 
now ; indeed the whole of Mr. Buckland’s theory pro¬ 
ceeds on the fuppofition of the habits of the ante-diluvian 
hyaena being the fame as thofe of the novv-exifting one. 
We know it has been advanced as an explanation of the 
elephant being found enveloped in a mafs of ice near the 
mouth of the Lena, that it was a different fpecies from 
the elephant of warm climates ; as a proof of which, its 
fkin was covered with a foft fur. If it only differed in 
this refpeft, we fliould contend that this was no proof at 
all. The animal might have ftrayed in the fummer- 
months along the banks of a river, and part of a Sibe¬ 
rian winter would be quite fufficient to proteft his hide 
with a covering of down : the fame thing happened to a 
dog which wintered with Captain Parry at Melville Illand. 
The fkeleton of a crocodile, or animal of the lizard-fa¬ 
mily, forty feet long, was dug up not long Ance in Ox- 
fordftiire; and the remains of a crocodile were found, ftill 
more recently, eighteen feet under ground, in Hackney- 
fields. Now this is an animal of a warm ciimate. So 
are alfo the plants of the palm tribe, dug up in the Ifie 
of Sheppey, natives of the equinoftial regions. How are 
the trunks, with leaves and fruit, buried at the mouth 
5 E of 
