The Ancient Fauna of Essex. 
15 
Woolly Rhinoceros, the Big-nosed Rhinoceros, the Gigantic 
Beaver, and many other of the animals already mentioned, 
including the Sabre-toothed Tiger, which has also been found 
at Kent’s Cave, Torquay ; so that we have evidence in two 
places at least of its occurrence. An elevation of six hundred 
feet would change not only the physical conditions of our 
island, but also its climate. Instead of that variable mildness 
which now characterises our winter season, we should have 
then a more Continental climate, more severe cold would be 
experienced in winter, and also 
a greater heat in summer. 
Then, too, it must be remem¬ 
bered that our highlands 
would be standing at a greater 
elevation. Our Scotch moun¬ 
tains, instead of every year 
shedding their mantle of snow, 
would at that period have re¬ 
tained snow all the year round; 
the Welsh mountains would 
also have been deeply im¬ 
mersed in snow, and probably 
have remained covered during 
the whole year. The great 
valley of the North Sea at 
that time would have formed 
a grand grazing ground for 
Fig. 7.—Skull of the Great Sabre- 
toothed Tiger (2Iachairodus), from 
the Newer Tertiary deposits of 
South America. [Reproduced, by 
the herds of Elephants, Permission, from the Guide to the 
. , „ T ... , Department of Geology in the 
Reindeer, Wild Horses, and „ ... , , T , 
’ _ _ British Museum.j 
other large herbivores; whilst 
the Sabre-toothed Tiger, the Lion, the Bear, the Hytena, and 
Wolf, would have had ample opportunity for following tlieir 
calling in the same area. My colleague, Mr. William Davies, 
has made an interesting suggestion as to the cause of the 
paucity of the remains of the Carnivora in these deposits. 
We seldom find remains of these carnivores : we meet with a 
fragment here and a fragment there, but they bear no 
proportion to those of the herbivores. The explanation 
