24 ACCOUNT OF FOSSIL TEETH AND BONES 
state of the muscles of his neck, being so full and strong, that in 
early times this animal was fabled to have but one cervical vertebra. 
They live by day in dens, and seek their prey by night, having large 
prominent eyes, adapted, like those of the rat and mouse, for seeing 
in the dark. To animals of such a class, our cave at Kirkdale would 
afford a most convenient habitation ; and the circumstances we find 
developed in it are entirely consistent with the habits above enu¬ 
merated. 
It appears, from the researches of M. Cuvier, that the fossil hyasna 
was nearly one-third larger than the largest of the modern species, 
that is, the striped or Abyssinian; but, in the structure of its 
teeth, more nearly resembled the Cape animal. (See Plate III. fig. 
1, 2, 3, 4, and Plate IV. fig. 1, 2, 3.) Its muzzle also was shorter 
and stronger than in either of them, and consequently its bite more 
powerful. The length of the largest modern hyaena noticed is five 
feet nine inches. 
The fossil species has been found on the Continent in situations 
of two kinds, both of them consistent with the circumstances under 
which it occurs in Yorkshire, and, on comparing the jaws and teeth 
of the latter with those of the former engraved in M. Cuvier’s Ke- 
cherches sur les Ossemens fossiles, I find them to be absolutely iden¬ 
tical. The two situations are caverns and diluvian gravel. 
1. In Franconia the bones of hyasnag have been found mixed with 
those of an enormous number of bears and of tigers in the 
caves near Muggendorf. 
2. In the Hartz Forest similar bones of hyaenas, bears, and tigers 
have been found together in the caves of Scharzfeld and 
Bauman’s Hole. 
