62 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCK LAND. 
[CH. III. 
pieces and swallowed, the teeth being rejected as too hard 
for mastication, and without marrow. The greatest 
number of teeth are those of hyenas and the ruminantia. 
Mr. Gibson alone collected more than three hundred canine 
teeth of the hyena, which at the least must have belonged 
to seventy-five individuals, and adding to these the canine 
teeth I have seen in other collections, I cannot calculate 
the total number of hyenas of which there is evidence at 
less than two hundred or three hundred. The only remains 
that have been found of the tiger species arc two large 
canine teeth and a few molar teeth. There is one tusk 
only of a bear, which exactly resembles those of the extinct 
Ursus spelmts of the caves of Germany, the size of which, 
M. Cuvier says, must have equalled those of a large horse. 
It is probable that the cave at Kirkdale was, during a long 
succession of years, inhabited as a den by hyenas, and that 
they dragged into its recesses the other animal bodies 
whose remains are found mixed indiscriminately with their 
own.” 1 
Buckland’s friend the Rev. William Conybeare made 
a caricature of the Professor entering the cave, and wrote 
the following amusing verses :— 
“ But of all the miraculous caves, 
And of all their miraculous stories, 
Kirby Hole all its brethren outbraves, 
With Buckland to tell of its glories. 
“Ages long ere this planet was formed, 
(1 beg pardon—before it was drowned,) 
Fierce and fell were the monsters that swarmed, 
Roared, and rolled in these hollows profound. 
“ I can show you the fragments half-gnawed, 
Their own albu?n grazeum IVe spied, 
And here are the bones that they pawed, 
And polished in scratching their hide. 
1 “Reliquiae Diluvianae,” p. 15. 
