20 
ACCOUNT OF FOSSIL TEETH AND BONES 
dragged into its recesses the other animal bodies whose remains are 
found mixed indiscriminately with their own: this conjecture is ren¬ 
dered almost certain by the discovery I made, of many small balls of 
the solid calcareous excrement of an animal that had fed on bones, 
resembling the substance known in the old Materia Medica by the name 
of album graecum (see Plate X. fig. 6): its external form is that of a 
sphere, irregularly compressed, as in the feces of sheep, and varying 
from half an inch to an inch and a half in diameter; its colour is yellowish 
white, its fracture is usually earthy and compact, resembling steatite, 
and sometimes granular; when compact, it is interspersed with small 
cellular cavities, and in some of the balls there are undigested minute 
fragments of the enamel of teeth. It was at first sight recognised by 
the keeper of the Menagerie at Exeter Change, as resembling, both in 
form and appearance, the feces of the spotted or Cape hyaena, which 
he stated to be greedy of bones beyond all other beasts under his care. 
This information I owe to Dr. Wollaston, who has also made an analysis 
of the substance under discussion, and finds it to be composed of the 
ingredients that might be expected in fecal matter derived from bones, 
viz. phosphate of lime, carbonate of lime, and a very small proportion 
of the triple phosphate of ammonia and magnesia; it retains no 
animal matter, and its originally earthy nature and affinity to bone 
will account for its perfect state of preservation *. 
I do not know what more conclusive evidence than this can be 
added to the facts already enumerated, to show that the hymnas 
* I have one ball of this substance that is in great part invested with a thin circular 
case or crust of stalagmite. This must have been formed round it whilst it lay loose and 
exposed to the dripping of water on the bottom of the cave, before the introduction of 
the mud. 
