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R. hemitoechus, Falconer, in which the ossification of the septum dividing the nostrils is incomplete in the middle, besides other cranial and dental characters distinguishing it from R. tichorhinus, accompanies Elephas antiquus in most of the oldest British bone-caves, such as Kirkdale, Cefn, Durdham Down, Minchin Hole, and other Gower caverns also found at Clacton, in Essex, and in Northamptonshire.
In fact, bones seem to be a prolific product of this region, for the "bone-caves" of the Dowards produce the relics of many animals long vanished from the kingdom, and also disclose rude weapons of flint, showing that the primitive races of men were here with them.
Many paleontolgists, however, identify the great cat-like animal, whose skeletons are frequently found in British bone-caves, with the lion of our times. See his letter to Coelius, Epist. ad Diversos, Lib. II., Ep. 11.
His type among the animals is the wolf, and one readily recalls how largely the wolf figures in the traditions and legends and folklore of Continental Europe, and how closely his remains are associated with those of man in the bone-caves of the geologists. He has not stalked through their forests and fascinated their imaginations so long for nothing.
It is true that the finish of the Mexican obsidian implements far exceeds that of the chipped flint and agate weapons of Scandinavia, and still more those of England, Switzerland, and Italy, where they are dug up in such quantities, in deposits of alluvial soil, and in bone-caves in the limestone rocks.
But Primitive Man, or at any rate the most primitive men we know personally, the carvers of the figures from the French bone-caves, drew men and beasts, on bone or mammoth-tusk, turned either way indiscriminately. The inference is obvious. They must have been ambidextrous.
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