The most remarkable animal discovered in the cave, by the Rev. J. MacEnery, is the Machairodus latidens,[213] or large lion-like animal, armed with double-edged canines, in shape like the blade of a sabre, and with two serrated edges. Five canines and two incisors were dug out of the cave-earth, C, in the Wolf’s Passage, along with vast quantities of bones and teeth of the mammoth, rhinoceros, Irish elk, horse, and hyæna. One of the canines is represented in [Figs. 101, 102], which are taken from one of the original plates drawn for Dr. Buckland, and now in the Museum of the Torquay Natural History Society. The two incisors, [Figs. 103, 104, 105], are also characterised by their serrated edges. A third was discovered by the exploration committee in the same spot, in 1872, scarcely to be distinguished from that in [Figs. 103, 104], which finally dispelled the scepticism of some eminent naturalists as to whether any of these teeth had been obtained in the cave by the Rev. J. MacEnery.
Figs. 101, 102.—Upper Canine of Machairodus, Kent’s Hole (1/1). (MacEnery.)
The Machairodus latidens has been found in pleistocene strata in two localities in France: in a deposit of diluvium, near Puy, by M. Aymard, and in the cavern of Baume in the Jura, considered by M. Lartet to be of preglacial age.[214] In the latter it was associated with the horse, ox, wild-boar, elephant, a non-tichorine species of rhinoceros, the cave-bear, and the spotted hyæna. In the autumn of 1873, I met with proof that the animal also lived in France in the pleiocene period. M. Lortet, the Director of the Museum of Natural History, at Lyons, called my attention to a canine, in the Palais des Beaux Arts, which coincides exactly in all its dimensions with one of those from Kent’s Hole. It was found at Chagny (Saône et Loire) near Dijon, along with Mastodon arvernensis, the Etruscan or megarhine species of rhinoceros, horse, beaver and hyæna, somewhat resembling that from the Crag (Hyæna antiqua) of Suffolk described by Mr. Lankester. The species, therefore, is pleiocene, and it belongs to a genus which is widely distributed in the meiocene strata of Europe and North America, as well as in the pleiocene of Europe.
To what era in the complicated history of Kent’s Hole is this animal to be assigned? The more ancient, or the more modern? The evidence on this point is, to a certain extent, contradictory. On the one hand it is a pleiocene species, belonging to a group of animals that inhabited Europe before the lowering of the temperature caused the invasion of the arctic mammalia from the north and the east: it is moreover of a distinctly southern type. In the teeth marks on the incisors, [Figs. 103, 104, 105], as well as on the canines, we have unmistakeable traces of the presence of the hyæna; and since the spotted hyæna abounds in the cave, to its teeth the marks in question may probably be referred. It seems, therefore, probable that the animal inhabited Devonshire during an early stage of the pleistocene period, before the arctic invaders had taken full possession of the valley of the English Channel, and of the low grounds which now lie within the 100-fathom line off the Atlantic shore of Western France. There must necessarily have been a swinging to and fro of animal life over the great, fertile low-lying region, which is now submerged (see Map, [Fig. 126]); and before the temperature of France had been sufficiently lowered to exterminate or drive out the southern forms, it is most natural to suppose that in warm seasons some of the southern mammalia would find their way northwards, and especially a formidable carnivore such as the machairodus. The extreme rarity of its remains forbids the hypothesis that it was a regular inhabitant of Britain during the pleistocene age.
Figs. 103, 104, 105.—Incisors of Machairodus, Kent’s Hole (1/1). (MacEnery.)[215]
On the other hand, the recent discovery of a second incisor in the uppermost portion of the cave-earth, in July 1872, in the same condition as the remains usually found, and associated with the bones and teeth of hyæna, horse, and bear, is considered by Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Pengelly proof of the animal having lived during the deposition of the later cave-earth, or in the later stage of the pleistocene. The condition of a bone, however, is a very fallacious guide to its antiquity, and although the fragments of the older contents of the cave are in a different mineral state, it is improbable that the ossiferous contents of so large a cave should have been mineralized exactly in the same way. Nor is an appeal to its perfect state conclusive, since several teeth of bear, which I have examined from the breccia, are equally perfect.
The view of the high antiquity of machairodus in Kent’s Hole derives support from the discovery of Rhinoceros megarhinus at Oreston, a species which is very abundant in the Italian pleiocene strata, and not uncommon in those of France,—a species with its headquarters in the south, but ranging as far north as Norfolk in the early stage of the pleistocene age, represented by the forest bed of Cromer, and that lived in the valley of the Thames, while the gravel-beds of Crayford and Grays Thurrock were being deposited by the ancient river. The occurrence of either of these animals in a cave is exceptional, and the presence of both in caves on the edge of the great plain extending southwards from the present coastline of Devon, seems to me to imply that both were open during the early stage of the pleistocene, while the pleiocene mammalia were retreating before the southward advance of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, spotted hyæna, reindeer, and their congeners, at a time anterior to the lowering of the temperature that culminated in the glacial period. For these reasons it seems to me probable that the machairodus belongs to an early rather than a late stage in the history of Kent’s Hole.
There is an important point of resemblance between the mode of the occurrence of the machairodus in Kent’s Hole, and of the megarhine rhinoceros at Oreston. The remains of both were met with only in one spot, and were not scattered through the chambers and passages. It may have happened that in the physical changes which those caves have undergone, both were preserved in a fissure like that described in the Uphill cave (p. 294), and that subsequently they dropped down and became imbedded in a newer deposit. In fixing the age of strata in caves it seems to me that the zoological evidence is of far greater weight than that of mere position, which may be the result of accidental circumstances.