The Caves of Ireland.
The caves of Ireland would probably afford as rich a fauna as those of Britain, had they been explored with equal care. In one at Shandon, near Dungarvan, Waterford, remains of the brown bear (U. arctos) reindeer, horse, and mammoth were discovered in 1859, by Mr. Brenan.[216] The first of these animals became extinct in Ireland before the historic period, while it survived in Britain at least as late as the Roman occupation.
The cave-bear is also recorded by Dr. Carte,[217] from the same place, but the thigh bone assigned to it seems to me to belong to the brown, or common species. The mammoth, so abundant in Britain, has only been discovered in two other localities in Ireland, at Whitechurch near Dungarvan, and at Magherry near Belturbet.[218]
The range of these animals over Great Britain and Ireland in the pleistocene age enables us to realize the ancient physical geography, which will be treated in the next and following chapters as part of the general question of the physical condition of north-western Europe at that time.
CHAPTER IX.
THE INHABITANTS OF THE CAVES OF NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE, AND THE EVIDENCE OF THE FAUNA AS TO THE ATLANTIC COASTLINE.
The Caves of France, Baume, of Périgord.—Caves and Rock-shelters of Belgium, Trou de Naulette.—Caves of Switzerland.—Cave-dwellers and Palæolithic Men of River-deposits.—Classification of Palæolithic Caves.—Relation of Cave-dwellers to Eskimos.—Pleistocene animals living north of Alps and Pyrenees.—Relation of Cave to River-bed Fauna.—The Atlantic Coastline.—Distribution of Palæolithic Implements.
The Caves of France.
The caves of France have been proved, by the explorations carried on during the course of the present century, to contain the same animals, introduced under the same conditions as those which we have already described. Some species, however, have been met with which have not been discovered in this country. In the cave of Lunel-viel, for example, the common striped hyæna of Africa (Hyæna striata) has been found by Marcel de Serres, to whom belongs the credit of being the first systematic explorer of caverns in France. In that of Bruniquel, the ibex, now found only in the higher mountains in Europe, the chamois and the Antelope saiga, an animal inhabiting the plains of the region of the Volga and of southern Siberia, have been identified by Prof. Owen; while in the collection obtained by Mr. Moggridge from the caves of Mentone, Prof. Busk has recognized the marmot. With these exceptions there is no distinction between the faunas of the bone-caves of this country and of France.[219]