The Cave Hyena and the Cave Bear—The Cavern of Kirkdale—The Moa Caves in New Zealand—Various Species of Moas—Their enormous size.

Besides their picturesque beauty or their solemn grandeur, some caves are extremely interesting as containing the bones of extinct quadrupeds or birds. Unrivalled in point of antiquity by the oldest tombs erected by man, they carry us back to times which, though of comparatively recent date, are still so far removed from the present day as almost to terrify the imagination—for how many ages must have elapsed, and what changes of climate must have taken place, since the hyena or the tiger inhabited the grottoes of northern Europe?

In many cases the bones found in ossiferous caves must have been washed into them by currents of water, or else they may be the remains of animals that accidentally dropped in through holes in the roof; but there can be no doubt that frequently the caves in which the bones of extinct carniverous animals have been found, served as their dens while they were living. The abundance of bony dung associated with the remains of the hyena, as well as the great number of bones all belonging to one species which are frequently found congregated in the same cave, is strongly confirmatory of this opinion, no less than the circumstance that the walls of several ossiferous caves, when deprived of their stalactital covering, have been found smoothed or rounded off from the frequent ingress and egress of their former inhabitants as they squeezed themselves or dragged their prey through a narrow passage. Besides, the hyenas and bears of the present day frequently live in caves, thus justifying the inference that their extinct predecessors had the same habit.

The antiquity of many of the animal remains found in caves is proved not only by their being dissimilar to existing species, but by the manner in which they are entombed. For ages they accumulated on the floor of the cave, often to a considerable depth, mixed with mud or sand or fragments of rock—then, when, from a change of level or some other cause, the cavern became uninhabited, a thick crust of stalagmite was slowly formed, and burying them all, as under solid stone, preserved them undisturbed, until some accident revealed their existence after a time the length of which escapes all calculation. The dim vista into the past appears still more shadowy in the case of the cavern discovered by Dr. Schmerling at Choquier about two leagues from LiÈge, where three distinct beds of stalagmite were found, and between each of them a mass of breccia and mud, mixed with quartz, pebbles, and in the three deposits the bones of extinct quadrupeds!

Ossiferous caves have been found and examined in many parts of the world: in France, in Belgium, chiefly in the valleys of the Meuse and its tributaries; in Austria and Hungary, in Germany and England.

It is remarkable that while the remains of a large and extinct species of bear, although found in our caves, are much more common on the Continent, the bones of the hyena form by far the largest proportion of those obtained from the English caverns. Thus under the incrustated floors of our rock-crevices and hollows, we And the proofs that our island was once inhabited by brutes which are now confined to Africa and the adjacent parts of Asia. But the extinct hyena of England was a much larger and more formidable animal than either the striped hyena of Abyssinia or the spotted hyena of the Cape, the latter of whom it most resembled. The abundance of these animals, and the length of the period during which they inhabited England, may be inferred from Dr. Buckland’s account of the opening of the celebrated cavern of Kirkdale.

‘The bottom of the cave, on first removing the mud, was found to be strewed all over, like a dog-kennel, from one end to the other, with hundreds of teeth and bones, and on some of the bones marks could be traced, which, on applying one to the other, appeared exactly to fit the form of the canine teeth of the hyena that occurred in the cave. Mr. Gibson alone collected more than three hundred canine teeth of the hyena, which must have belonged to at least seventy-five individuals, and adding to these the similar teeth I have seen in other collections, I cannot calculate the total number of hyenas, of which there is evidence, at less than two or three hundred.’

The grisly bear of the Rocky Mountains (Ursus ferox) is the most ferocious of its race at the present day. It is about nine feet long, and is said to attain the weight of 800 pounds. Its strength is so prodigious that even the bison contends with it in vain. But this huge and formidable animal was surpassed in size and strength by the extinct bear (Ursus spelaeus) which once inhabited the caverns of Europe, at a time when vast and interminable forests covered the land, and the Rhine and the Danube flowed through wastes like those through which the Mackenzie or the Yenissei now find their way to the ocean.

From the proportions of the molar teeth, and from some peculiarities of appearance and wearing, it has been inferred that this extinct species lived chiefly on vegetable food; but its prodigious strength, and the huge canines with which its jaws were armed, enabled it to cope with its contemporaries, the large Auerox and the teichorhine rhinoceros, and to defend itself successfully against the large lion or tiger whose remains have also been found in the caverns of western Europe, and which, if we may judge by the size of their canine teeth, must have been more than a match for the largest felides of the present day.

Besides the hyena and the bear, more than a hundred species of extinct animals have been discovered in our ossiferous caves. In those of Paviland, Glamorganshire, bones of a primeval elephant have been found; and in that of Wirksworth, Derbyshire, the almost entire skeleton of a rhinoceros lay buried in a considerable mass of gravel and osseous fragments. How the large creature came there is a question that may well exercise the ingenuity of a geologist.

Though in these and similar cases, the bone-caves have been found to contain the remains of animals very different from those now existing in the same region, yet in general they show a remarkable relationship, in the same land or continent, between the dead and the living. Thus in the caves of Brazil there are extinct species of all the thirty-two genera, excepting four, of the terrestrial quadrupeds now inhabiting the provinces in which the caves occur, such as fossil ant-eaters, armadilloes, tapirs, peccaries, guanacoes, opossums, and numerous South American gnawers, monkeys and other animals.

The kangaroo, as is well-known, is peculiar to Australia, and caverns in that country have been described by Sir T. Mitchell, containing fossil bones of a large extinct kangaroo.

A singular wingless bird, the Apteryx australis, is found only in the wilds of the interior of New Zealand, where it takes refuge in the clefts of rocks, hollow trees, or in deep holes which it excavates in the ground. The caves of that country show us that it was preceded by other wingless birds of a gigantic structure—the Moas, by the side of which even the ostriches of the present day would shrink into comparative insignificance.

These wonderful creatures would probably have remained unknown to the present day, if, in 1839, the thigh-bone of a Moa had not fallen by chance into the hands of Professor Owen, who from this single fragment drew up a surprisingly correct notice of the bird. This memoir, sent out to New Zealand, gave a stimulus to further researches, and from the larger quantity of the Moa’s bones now sent to England, Professor Owen built up the beautiful skeleton which, along with those of the Mylodon robustus, of the Mammoth, and of the primeval stag, forms one of the most conspicuousconspicuous ornaments of the splendid Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

But the reconstructive genius of our great palÆontologist, not satisfied with this triumph, has detected a whole group of ostrich-like birds among the remnants of the past, which the New Zealanders, who, as we may suppose, are no adepts in comparative anatomy, all confound under the common name of the Moa; and thus five species of Dinornis, the Palaeopteryx, the Aptornis, and the comparatively small Notornis, have been, as it were, resuscitated by a miracle of science. A specimen of the last-named species of these birds was caught alive in a remote, unfrequented part of the south island of New Zealand in 1850 by some sealers, who, ignorant of the value of their prize, killed and devoured it as if it had been a common turkey. Fortunately, however, the skin of this unique bird, the link between the living and the dead, the last perhaps of a race coeval with the gigantic Moas, was preserved from destruction.

The largest species of Moa (Dinornis robustus) must have stood, when alive, about thirteen or fourteen feet high, since Dr. Thomson saw a complete leg, which stood six feet from the ground. Like the ostrich, this feathered giant was incapable of flight, its rudimentary wings being unable to raise it from the ground. It had three toes on each foot, and tradition says that its feathers were beautiful and gaudy. Portions of the eggs of the bird have been found among their bones, of a sufficient size to estimate the probable size of a whole egg, and the conclusion is that the hat of a full-grown man would have been a proper-sized egg-cup for it. From the structure of the toes, which were well adapted for digging up roots, and from the traditional report that the Moas were in the habit of swallowing stones to promote digestion, it may be concluded that they were herbivorous.

This is about as much as we know of the aspect and habits of this colossal Struthionide, whose apparent confinement to the small New Zealandic group is one of the most curious enigmas of its history. As it is extremely improbable that so gigantic a race was originally formed for so narrow a sphere, we are led to believe that New Zealand is but the remnant of a vast continent now whelmed under the waves of the Pacific.

When the group was first peopled by the Maories, about five hundred years ago, the Moas had already become excessively rare, and the last of them seem to have perished during the seventeenth century, though the New Zealanders believe that some of them still live in the remote and unfrequented wilds of their native land.

The bones of the various species of Moa have been partly found in morasses, partly in the beds of mountain torrents, but chiefly in various caves, which, no doubt, served the living animals as dwellings or places of refuge.

One of these caverns, called by the New Zealanders ‘Te Anaoteatua,’ or the Cave of the Spirit, was visited by Dr. Thomson,^[30] who describes it as very remarkable. It is situated in the tertiary, extremely cavernous, and undermined limestone mountain chain which extends along the west coast of the northern island, and whose picturesque beauties and natural curiosities are destined to occupy a conspicuous place in some future guide-book. Its entrance, resembling the gateway of an old castle, is concealed by a thick foliage of shrubs, and a dark green creeper adheres to the limestone rock and covers the opening. The cave extends in a tortuous direction underneath the hill for upwards of a mile, and consists of several different passages. From its roof and sides numerous stalactites are hanging, some of them six feet long, and composed of transparent calcareous spar, while others have a red tint. In that part of the cave which Dr. Thomson explored, there were three openings in the roof at different places, each from ten to fifteen feet in circumference, through which light was seen streaming in, one hundred and fifty feet above the head. Immediately below these openings there were heaps of wood and dÉbris washed down from the surface; but these openings did not throw much light into the cave, so that even during the day it was perfectly dark. A subterranean stream of water runs through part of it, and then disappears under the rock.

Before the introduction of Christianity, this cave was held in the greatest terror by all New Zealanders, and no one would have ventured to enter it; but as Moa bones fetch a high price, the love of money at length conquered the superstitious fears of some Christian natives, and their boldness was rewarded by a tolerably rich harvest of bones, although their search was made in a very hasty and imperfect manner.

Another cave situated in the same neighbourhood, and bearing the indigenous name of ‘Te Anaotemoa’ or the Cave of the Moa, did not enjoy the privilege of spiritual protection, and the Maories were in the habit of resorting to it to procure the skulls of the Moas, to keep the powder which they used for tattooing, and their long bones for the manufacture of fish-hooks, before they became acquainted with the use of iron.

The Cave of the Moa is in a limestone hill, with two openings, one towards the north-east and the other towards the south-west. The north-east opening has evidently been caused by the falling in of the roof, and is apparently of no great age; the south-west entrance is 14 feet high and 10 feet broad, and covered over with trees and bushes. The cave is 165 feet long, the greatest breadth 28 feet, and the height 60 feet. The roof is oval, and numerous stalactites drop gracefully from it, giving a cathedral-like effect to the whole. One part of the floor is covered over with calcareous spar, another part with a large deposit of soft stalagmites, and the part of the floor furthest distant from the south-west opening is covered with earth, limestones, and mud, which appear to have fallen down when the roof of the cave gave way, which now forms the north-east opening. It is under this earth, and the soft deposit of carbonate of lime, that the Moas’ bones are found. Dr. Thomson got only four skulls in this cave, and the scarcity of them was accounted for by their use in former days as powder-holders. There was nothing to lead him to think that these bones had been deposited in the cave by water, for he found a remnant of almost every bone in the body, from the spine and the rings of the trachea down to the last bone of the toes. The bones belonged to the largest and also to the smaller species of Moas.

It would require several days’ labour of many men to clear out the bottom of this cave properly, in order to see what bones it contains; but, as far as Dr. Thomson saw, there were no osseous remains of man or of any animals, except Moas, in it, nor any marks of fire, sculpture, nor figures of any kind on the walls of the cave.

There are, no doubt, many other grottoes and cavities containing Moas’ bones in the islands, but they are carefully kept secret by the natives, as, on account of the high price paid for the bones, they may almost be regarded as small gold-mines.