are still living in our island. The cave-bear, cave-lion, and cave-hyæna had vanished away, along with a whole group of pachyderms, and of all the extinct animals, but one, the Irish elk, still survived. The reindeer, so enormously abundant during the post-glacial epoch, lived on, greatly reduced in numbers; while the red deer, which was rare, became very numerous, and usurped those feeding grounds which formerly supported vast herds of the reindeer. With this exception, all the Arctic group of mammalia, such as the musk-sheep and the marmots, had retreated northwards; a fact which shows that the climate of Britain during pre-historic times was warmer, or rather less severe than during the former epoch." Only in the Neolithic Period do the goat, sheep, long-faced ox (Bos longifrons), and dog, make their appearance in Britain.
This difference in the fauna is of great importance, as affording some guide in judging of the antiquity of human remains when found in caverns without any characteristic weapons or implements; such, for instance, as the human skull cited by Prof. Boyd Dawkins[1] as having been found in a cave at the head of Cheddar Pass, in Somersetshire. For it must never be forgotten that the occupation of caves by man is not confined to any definite period; and that even in the case of the discovery of objects of human workmanship in direct association with the remains of the Pleistocene extinct mammals, their contemporaneity cannot be proved without careful observation of the circumstances under which they occur, even if then. Another point may also be here mentioned, namely, that where there is evidence of the occupation of a cavern by man, and also by large carnivores, they can hardly have been tenants in common, but the one must have preceded the other, or possibly the occupation by each may have alternated more than once. Bones[2] that have been gnawed by animals have sometimes the appearance of having been shaped by man. This is especially the case when beavers or porcupines have gnawed the bones. In determining the age of a cave-deposit the greatest circumspection is required, and special evidence is necessary in each individual case. Without, therefore, at present entering on any such questions, I proceed to notice the principal explorations of British caves, which have as yet been made, and the narratives of those who conducted them. In doing this I
