126 
THE NATURALISTS’ JOURNAL. 
but M. Bonfils, the enthusiastic curator of the museum at Men¬ 
tone, only admits five of these as genuine caves, the other being 
merely a crevice in the rock. The new skeletons were found in 
the fifth cave of M. Riviere which is accordingly the fourth cave 
of M. Bonfils. 
It is much to be regretted that the Red Rocks have, during 
the last seventeen years, been utterly spoilt by quarrying—one of 
the many acts of vandalism that are now perpetrated daily in the 
neighbourhood of Mentone. The fine projecting mass of rock 
with such a picturesque outline between the fifth and six caves of 
M. Riviere (fourth and fifth of M. Bonfils) is now almost entirely 
gone, and only a stone-quarry busy with workmen remains, while 
even the whole of the mouth of the fifth cave has been destroyed, 
and it was in the course of blasting away the side of this cave 
that the skeletons were quite accidentally discovered by the 
quarryman, a common uneducated workman. 
At the present time the number of human bodies of which 
remains have been discovered in these caves has been brought 
up to eleven, namely five complete skeletons and portions of six 
others, as will be seen from the following list:— 
1872—73. Complete skeleton of neolithic man discovered by 
M. Riviere. This isM. Riviere’s well known “ l’homme de Men¬ 
ton,” and is in the museum at Paris. Fragments of three human 
adults of heights r85, 1’90 and 2 # oo metres respectively. Frag¬ 
ments of three children. 
1884. M. Boufils discovered a perfect skeleton of a man 2*03 
metres high. This is the “ nouvel homme prehistorique de 
Menton ” and M. Boufils claims that it belongs to the palaeo¬ 
lithic era. The skull is in the museum at Mentone, but the rest 
of the bones were stolen by the quarrymen and have never been 
recovered. 
1892. Three entire skeletons of the neolithic era. According 
to M. Riviere’s report the present skeletons were found resting at 
a distance of 18 metres from the mouth of the cave, but as the 
latter has been destroyed these figures are not reliable. The cave 
is given by him as about 31‘50 m. deep at its narrowest part. 
At the time of my visit, April 1 \ th, the skeletons were still in 
situ but the skulls which had been sheltered by the workmen’s 
pick were removed and were being pieced together. The 
orientation of the bodies was e-w, although all the skeletons 
previously discovered had been found pointing n-s. 
All these skeletons were lying on their sides, the middle one 
at a slightly lower level than the other two. Of the latter, one 
was an old man, the other being a lad of about twenty as shown by 
the fact that the wisdom teeth were not fully cut. The middle 
was supposed to be a woman but being embeded at a slightly 
lower level had not been so critically examined. The heights 
have been variously estimated, for in a'notice which appeared in 
