Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 25.djvu/301

1869.] philus erythrogenoides, Arvicola pratensis, A. agrestis, and A. amphihius. None of these are of any special value in classification except the Machairodus, to the discussion of which animal we shall return. On the other hand, out of 31 mammals found in the river- deposits there is only one, the Musk- Sheep, which has not been found in the caves. There can, therefore, be no doubt that the deposits in the caverns are palaeontologically synchronous with those in the river-beds.

§ 6. Predominant Animals. — Fossil remains indicate the comparative numbers of the animals to which they belonged, only when their destructibility and size are taken into consideration. Thus the stone-like molars of the Mammoth would survive the destruction of all traces of the bones of the smaller animals, and remain in many instances as the sole evidence that Postglacial mammals ever dwelt in the area where they were found. The carnivores also must necessarily be fewer in number than their prey, the herbivora; and therefore their remains must also be more rare. Moreover the ruminants that shed their antlers annually cannot be compared with those of their order with persistent horns, because out of equal numbers of each the former will leave far more abundant traces. Keeping these facts in mind, it is not at all remarkable that the Mammoth should be more abundantly found in England than any other mammal ; but when it is compared with Elephas antiquus it will be seen that their relative numbers stand in the proportion of 82 to 30 *. Had all the cases of the isolated occurrence of the former animal been noted, the numerical difference would have been far greater. The tichorhine Rhinoceros stands in relation to the leptorhine in the proportion of 54 to 18 ; the Reindeer to the Red- deer and Roedeer as 44 to 30 and 8. The numerical proportion of the Bison to the Urus was as 49 to 27 ; that of the Hyoena speloea to the Cave Lion as 29 to 28 ; that of the Wolf to the Fox as 27 to 22. The few traces of the Musk- Sheep show that it was a stranger, and very rare in Britain, as compared with Bisons and Uri.

The comparatively few traces of man that have been found, when the indestructibility of his implements of stone and chert is taken into consideration, prove that he was not only few in numbers, but also that for a very long period he did not use flint implements in Britain†.

§ 7. Postglacial Mammals of Scotland and Ireland. — The number of the localities in England and Wales that have furnished Postglacial mammals is at the least 148. We will proceed now to the examination of those found in Scotland. The earliest recorded discovery is that made in 1817, of the Mammoth in the parish of

148, to these numbers.
 * The 36 caves added to 112 river-deposits furnish the common denominator,

† I am indebted to Mr. John Evans, F.R.S., for the following additional localities that have furnished palaeolithic implements — Bournemouth, Fording- bridge, Isle of Wight, Swalecliff, Canterbury, Highbury, King's Lynn, Bury St. Edmunds, Brandon, Shrub Hill ; and to Mr. Whitaker, F.G.S., for the following — Horton Kirby, in the valley of the Darent, Luton, Shefford, Valley of Medway south of Rochester (Kent).