The results of the exploration of these caves, so far as they bear on the history of man, may be summed up as follows. In the two lower stages, b and c, the hunters are identical with those of the river-drift, while the more highly-finished articles, which imply a higher, and probably a different, social condition, appear in the upper series, and are therefore later in time.
The oldest Fauna in the Cresswell Caves.
Fig. 58.—Upper Canine of Machairodus, Robin Hood Cave, 11.
The association of species in the strata of these caverns does not present any decided points of contrast, although it must be noted that in the Robin Hood cave, the leopard, and the sabre-toothed lion (Machairodus latidens) (Fig. 58), were found in the upper cave-earth, but along with the more common animals. The exploration, however, of a fourth cave, termed Mother Grundy's Parlour, by the Rev. J. M. Mello and myself in November 1878, has revealed an earlier chapter in the history of the caves of Cresswell Crags. Underneath the lower red sand, c, the lowest ossiferous layer in the other caverns, was a layer of red clay, varying in thickness from six inches to three feet, and resting on a ferruginous yellow sand a foot thick. In both these the remains of hyænas were very abundant, bisons were present, and the molar teeth, tusks, and other remains, proved that at least
