THE BONES AT ORESTON.. 
79 
have been effects produced on the bones as they lay dead within the 
fissures (for a weasel might find access by minute crevices to the in¬ 
terior of such fissures), and the wolves and hyasnas may have either 
fallen, like the horses, oxen, and deer, by accident into these natural 
pitfalls, or have been tempted to the fatal experiment of leaping into 
them to eat the carcases of the other animals, whilst they lay yet un¬ 
decayed within the fissures. The proportion of individuals collected 
at Oreston (the graminivorous being very much in excess beyond the 
carnivorous) is, as far as it goes, consistent with this hypothesis; and if 
this solution appears fanciful, it is one that need not be urged, for by 
the same accident that dogs at this day fall into the open fissure at 
Duncombe Park, no less than sheep and deer, might the wolves and 
the hyasnas also of the antediluvian world have fallen, as well as the 
horses and oxen, into the chasms which then in countless numbers 
crossed their paths, whenever they ventured on the perilous regions 
of the hollow and fissile limestone; and possibly some of them, whilst 
in the very act of pursuing their prey, may have dashed (like our less 
ferocious dogs in pursuit of game) into the chasms, which became the 
common grave of themselves and of the victim they were too eager to 
devour. And however new and unheard-of the existence of such 
fissures may be to those who have never visited or lived in a country 
composed of compact limestone, it is matter of painful notoriety to 
the farmers in Derbyshire, that their cattle are often lost by falling 
into the still open fissures that traverse the districts of the Peak; and 
it is no less matter of fact, that similar accidents are avoided in the 
mountain limestone countries of Monmouth and Glamorganshire only 
