Ths Ancient Fauna of Essex: 15
Woolly Rhinoceros, the Big-nosed Rhinoceros, the Gigantic
Beaver, and many other of the animals already mentioned,
including the Sabre-toothed Tiger, which has also been found
at Kent's Cave, Torquay ; so that we have evidence in two
places at least of its occurrence. An elevation of six hundred
feet would change not only the physical conditions of our
island, but also its climate. Instead of that variable mildness
which now characterises our winter season, we should have
then a more Continental climate, more severe cold would be
experienced in winter, and also
a greater heat in summer.
Then, too, it must be remem-
bered that our highlands
would be standing at a greater
elevation. Our Scotch moun-
tains, instead of every year
shedding their mantle of snow,
would at that period have re-
tained snow all the year round;
the Welsh mountains would
also have been deeply im-
mersed in snow, and probably
have remained covered during

the whole year. The great
valley of the North Sea at
that time would have formed
a grand grazing ground for
the herds of Elephants,
Reindeer, Wild Horses, and

Fig. 7.—Skull of the Great Sabre-
toothed Tiger (Machairodus), from
the Newer Tertiary deposits of
South America. [Reproduced, by
permission, from the Guide to the
Department of Geology in the
British Museum.]
other large herbivores; whilst
the Sabre-toothed Tiger, the Lion, the Bear, the Hyaena, and
Wolf, would have had ample opportunity for following their
calling in the same area. My colleague, Mr. William Davies,
has made an interesting suggestion as to the cause of the
paucity of the remains of the Carnivora in these deposits.
We seldom find remains of these carnivores : we meet with a
fragment here and a fragment there, but they bear no
proportion to those of the herbivores. The explanation