Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 33.djvu/699

Rh its possessor, or who might have had the rare luck to kill so formidable an animal. Indeed, that this tooth attracted attention in ancient times, we have evidence in a specimen in the Museum at Florence, found in an Etruscan tomb, and which may be fairly taken to be the earliest example of fossil-collecting within the historic period. It was derived from the Pliocene of the Val d'Arno. Whether, however, the Creswell tooth was collected or not, its mineral condition agreeing with that of the other associated teeth forbids the supposition that it was obtained from the Forest-bed, or from any Pliocene strata on the Continent, in which the remains, so far as I have yet seen, are in a totally different state of preservation and of a different colour. As the evidence stands, it is in favour of the animal having been a contemporary of man in the neighbourhood.

The Lion (Felis spelæa).—A canine, a lower true molar, a gnawed tibia, and 8 bones of the feet, belong to the Lion. The following measurements of metatarsal bones compared with those given by Mr. Sanford and myself in the monograph on Felis spelæa (Palæont. Soc. part 1, p. 25) imply that the animal was intermediate, in point of size, between the large variety of the caves and the smaller form now prevailing in Africa and India.

The Leopard (F. pardus).—One ectocuneiform from the cave-earth is undistinguishable from that of a Leopard. It is far too large to be identified with any of the smaller Pleistocene felines, and too small to match with that of any of the fossil or recent Lions, as may be seen by comparing the measurements below with those in part 1, p. 18, of 'British Pleistocene Mammalia' (Palæont. Soc).