This cave-fauna is more closely related to that of southern Europe than to that north of the Alps and Pyrenees. The striped hyæna found in the cave of Lunel-viel, Hérault, by Marcel de Serres, along with the reindeer and other animals, probably belongs to the same southern group.
Bone-caves of Sicily.
Certain members of the African fauna are also proved to have ranged northwards over Europe in the direction of Sicily, by the discoveries in the caves of that island. The Sicilian bone-caves have been worked for the sake of the bones since the year 1829; and of these many shiploads were sent to Marseilles from San Ciro, belonging, according to M. de Christol, principally to the hippopotamus. In 1859,[250] Dr. Falconer examined the collections made from this cave, as well as those which remained in situ, and carried on further researches into a second in the neighbourhood, known as the Grotto di Maccagnone, and in the following year two others were discovered and explored in northern Sicily by Baron Anca. The species were as follows:—
Homo, man.
Felis leo, lion.
Hyæna crocuta, spotted hyæna.
Ursus ferox,[251] grizzly bear.
Canis.
Cervus, deer.
Bos, ox.
Equus, horse.
Sus scrofa, boar.
Elephas antiquus.
Elephas Africanus, African elephant.
Hippopotamus major, hippopotamus.
Hippopotamus Pentlandi.
Lepus.
The presence of man was indicated by charcoal and flint flakes.
The African elephant was obtained from three caves: from that of San Teodoro, by Baron Anca; from Grotta Santa, near Syracuse, by the Canon Alessi; and from a cave near Palermo, by M. Charles Gaudin. It is obvious that the presence of this animal, as well as of the spotted hyæna, in Sicily can only be accounted for on the hypothesis that a bridge of land formerly existed, by which they could pass from their head-quarters, that is to say Africa. On the other hand the presence of the grizzly bear, and of the Elephas antiquus implies that they passed over into Sicily, from their European headquarters, before the existence of the Straits of Messina, since both animals are abundant on the mainland of Europe. The larger species of hippopotamus, doubtfully referred by Dr. Falconer to the H. major (= H. amphibius), may have crossed over either from Italy, where its remains are very abundant in the pleiocene and pleistocene strata, or from Africa.
Fig. 127.—Molar of Hippopotamus Pentlandi (1/1). (Sicily.)
A small species of hippopotamus, H. Pentlandi, [Fig. 127], occurs in incredible abundance in the Sicilian caves. It bears the same relation, in point of size, to the fossil variety of the African hippopotamus, as the living H. liberiensis does to the latter.