Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/131

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The porcupine of northern Africa and the warmer European districts of the Mediterranean, as well as of Asia Minor, lived in the Pleistocene age as far north as the banks of the Meuse. The leopard or panther, common to Africa and the warmer regions of middle and northern Asia, also ranged through Europe as far to the north-west as the Mendip Hills (see Fig. 24). The discovery of its remains in the caves of Gibraltar, France, and Germany, proves that in the Pleistocene age it passed over into Spain, France, and Saxony, just as those in the Mendip caves show that it passed northwards over the area of the Channel, to prey upon the reindeer, bisons, and horses of Somersetshire. It was very rare as compared with the other carnivores of the period—lions, bears, and hyænas—and it was associated in its wanderings with the feline now found throughout Africa the Caffer cat. The lynx of northern Africa, Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, and the Levant, has been discovered in the caves of Gibraltar. The lion, now found only in the warm climates of Africa and southern Asia, hunted its prey as far north as Yorkshire (Kirkdale), and as far to the north-east as the frontiers of Poland. The spotted hyæna now lives only in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert: then it abounded in Spain, France, Germany, and in Britain, as far north as the vale of