Page:Excavations at the Kesslerloch.djvu/35

Rh able bones of the Alpine bare (Lepus variabilis) were discovered here. The remains of the hare were by far more numerous than those of any other animal. Not less than 424 right, and 502 left under-jaws were found, so that more than 500 of these animals have been brought into the cave. At the present day the Alpine hare no longer occurs in this district, but has retreated to the higher regions of the Alps, where it is still found in as great abundance as the field-hare in the plains. Of this last-named animal some few remains of bones have been found in the cave; but they are doubtless of later ages.

The remains of several birds were found in the cave of Thayngen; we may mention in the first place no inconsiderable number of bones of the ptarmigan (Tetrao lagopus). Not less than eighty right, and the same number of left humeri were found, so that the cave-dwellers had eaten at least eighty individuals of this species. A great number of other bones were found, but not the trace of a skull. This appears the more singular, as the examination of the cave at Veyrier has given precisely the same results. Naturally we cannot come to any certain and definite conclusion respecting this fact. Professor Fraas is disposed to attribute a number of these bird's bones to the Tetrao albinos. The ptarmigan is found wherever the mountains are covered with snow and ice, consequently it lives both in our Alps and in the cold north, and it is in fact the only animal of the Thayngen fauna which has withdrawn from this district both to the greatest heights of the south and to the most distant districts of the north.

The goose was also found together with the ptarmigan ; but it cannot be decided whether it was the Anser cinereus, or A. legatum, as only the heads of three humeri were found, two of which had been worked; the humerus had been cut off about the middle, and then a little distance off it had been perforated.

Of the wild swan (Cygnus musicus), we found the heads of two humeri and a tibia, which had been cut with a flint knife. It is to be found in every region of the world except the torrid zone; and yet it is more abundant in the temperate and cold districts of the northern hemisphere. Its favourite haunts are fresh-water lakes and watery marshes, and these were doubtless found in those ages in the immediate neighbourhood of the cave. The peat moors lying east and west of the Kesslerloch, and the lake of Egel, which still exists, are perhaps the last traces of these marshes.