at the present day[1]. The obtusely pointed quartzite choppers would be admirably adapted for that purpose. Fragments of charcoal and calcined bone show also that the game was roasted inside the cave.
C. Order Carnivora.
Fig. 3.
Upper canine of Machairodus, Robin-Hood Cave, 11.
Machairodus.—The discovery of the incised drawing of a palæolithic Horse is rivalled in value by that of the rare animal Machairodus (fig. 3) in the same stratum at a short distance away. On July 3, while I happened to be superintending the work, one of our men dug out, before my eyes, the crown of a fine upper canine quite perfect. It lay about one foot below the stalagmite in the cave-earth; and in association with it were a fine flint flake and remains of Bear, Woolly Rhinoceros, Reindeer, Horse, and Mammoth.
The length of the crown measures 2⋅6 inches as compared with specimens of the same tooth from other localities; and it is of the same broad form as those from Kent's Hole and that which I examined in 1873 in the Museum of Lyons, which was discovered at Chagny, near Dijon, in association with the Horse, Beaver, Mastodon arvernensis, Ursus etruscus, Hyæna antiqua (?), and three species of Cervus. The base of the crown measures 1⋅25, while the tape measurement from the base of the fang to the much-worn stump of the crown, is 4⋅2 inches. This specimen is of peculiar value, because it proves that the Machairodus latidens is a variety or species that lived in France in, the Pliocene age[2]. Taken in connexion with similar discoveries in Kent's Hole, the Creswell example implies that the Machairodus was a survival from the Pliocene into the Pleistocene age, like the Rhinoceros hemitœchus, the Horse, and the Elephas antiquus, and into that later stage which is marked by the presence of large herds of Reindeer in this country. The tooth was probably introduced into the cave by the hand of man, since it is broken short off by a sharp blow, and is without marks of the teeth of hyænas; a few scratches at its base may have been made by a flint flake. Its singular shape and sharp, serrated cutting-edges would certainly strike the fancy of any rude huntsman who might be fortunate enough to meet with the carcass or skeleton of
- ↑ Dr. Schweinfurt remarks that, on his journey to the Niam-Niam, "the halting-places of a former caravan were covered by heaps of broken bones."—Vol. i.
- ↑ I take this opportunity of thanking Dr. Lortet, the Director of the Geological Museum in the Palais des Beaux Arts, at Lyons, for giving me every facility for working in 1873 at the fossil mammals under his care.
