34 ACCOUNT OF FOSSIL TEETH AND BONES 
small-animals, as well as carrion and bones; nor is the disproportion 
in size of the animal to that of its prey greater than that of wolves 
and foxes, which are supposed by Captain Parry to feed chiefly on 
mice, during the long winters of Melville Island. Hearne, in his 
Journey to the Northern Ocean, mentions the fact « of a hill, called 
Grizzle Bear Hill, being deeply furrowed and turned over like 
ploughed land by bears in search of ground squirrels, and perhaps 
mice, which constitute a favourite part of their food. If bears eat 
mice, why should not hyaenas eat rats? Our largest dogs eat rats 
and mice; jackalls occasionally prey on mice, and dogs and foxes will 
eat frogs. It is probable, therefore, that neither the size nor aquatic 
habit of the water rat would secure it from the hysenas. They might 
occasionally also have eaten mice, weasels, rabbits, foxes, and birds, 
and in masticating the bodies of these small animals with their coarse 
conical teeth, many bones and fragments of bone would be pressed 
outwards through their lips, and fall neglected to the ground*. 
The occurrence of birds 5 bones may be explained by the proba¬ 
bility of the hyaenas finding the birds dead, and taking them home, 
as usual, to eat in their den: and the fact, that four of the only six 
bones of birds I have seen from Kirkdale are those of the ulna, may 
have arisen from the position of the quill feathers on it, and the small 
* The teeth and hones of water rats have been found by M. Cuvier to occur abun¬ 
dantly in many of the osseous breccias from the shores of the Mediterranean and 
Adriatic. He has also in his collection a large mass from Sardinia, composed exclusively 
of the bones and teeth of these animals, nearly as white as ivory, and slightly adhering 
together by delicate stalagmite; but by what process these hones were collected together, 
and whether in the antediluvian period, or more recently, it is not possible to decide, 
without careful examination of the spots in which they are respectively found, unless they 
happen to he in the same mass with bones or teeth belonging to other animals of extinct 
species. 
