Page:The history of Little England beyond Wales and the non-Kymric colony settled in Pembrokeshire.pdf/36

10 lupus), fox (canis vulpes), bears (spelæus and arctos), horse (equus caballus), ox (bos primigenius), bison (bos bison), Irish elk (cervus megaceros), red deer (cervus elaphus). These with the solitary exception of the cave bear (ursus spelæus) survived into the prehistoric period. Perhaps ursus spelæus had certain traits in common with the Polar bear (ursus maritimus), though he is generally considered as a prototype of the American grizzly.

Consisted of the lion (felis spelæa), the hyæna (hyæna crocula, var. spelæa), and the hippopotamus (H. major). These to all intents and purposes are at present represented by the African lion (felis leo), the spotted hyæna (hyæna crocuta), and the African hippopotamus (H. amphibius). In all likelihood neither of them precisely resembled the extinct beast, while on the other hand neither of them greatly varied from it. The large cats, as is well known, can stand a considerable amount of cold. The Indian tiger has no hesitation in following its prey into the snow-clad ranges af the Himalayan mountains, while the lion has flourished in the by no means mild climate of Northern Greece during the historic period. But whether felis leo, or felis tiger, could thrive in the West Wales of to-day, is more than doubttul; perhaps the pleistocene climate was drier as well as colder, and the beasts hardier; the same remarks will apply to the spotted hyæna. From the bones of the spelæan variety, it seems that this was a heavier brute than the animal which now inhabits the South of Africa, and probably he was also hardier than his modern representative.

So far then climate offers no difficulty as to the curious admixture of northern temperate and southern beasts’ bones in our caves. The crux has been left to the last. How is it possible te account for the contemporary existence of hippopotamus major and the reindeer in our land? Supposing we deem him to have been a purely northern type of hippopotamus, clad in scal-like fur, as was the rhinoceros tichorimus (a supposition for which there is not a tittle of evidence), even then how would he get a living in the ice-blocked rivers of the north ? Such plants as those on which recent hippopotami feed die down on the approach of winter. It seems impossible to account for a British hippopotamus unless we admit that he sought a milder climate when the rigor of winter set in; and although we have named a possible modus vivendi for the other southern beasts, it seems probable that they to a greater or less extent followed his example.

In pleistocene times the earth positively teemed with animal life. The strange nocturnal re-uniens described by modern travellers in Africa, might have been seen in those days at every moonlit pool. The earth was overstocked with great mammalians, and the southern beasts were driven to seek their subsistence, when the season permitted, in the lush pastures of the north; while during the severe winter months the northern and temperate beasts were driven by hunger down south, the carnivores of each division following perforce, and thus enjoying a strange diversity of diet. The lion feasted on reindeer venison, and the wolf filled his maw with hippopotamus beef. This free trade was rendered possible by the then configuration of the earth’s surface. As already mentioned, between pleistocene Britain and the Continent there was no water greater than a river to be passed by the migrating herds, and these when they reached Europe might, were they so disposed, pass on to Africa either by the western isthmus which joined Gibraltar to Tangiers, or by the central one which connected Cape Bon to the island of Sicily, and that again to Cape Spartivento. Migration was easy in those days for such mammals as dared to cross the rivers. This arrangement of land and water made a considerable difference in the climate, as Professor Boyd Dawkins observes in his work on Cave Hunting: "The substitution of land for water would give an