THE CAVE-BEAR. 291 



difficult to separate Ursus spdceus from other large species 

 of bear. The jaws and teeth are characteristic, but the other 

 portions of the skeleton are scarcely distinguishable, especially 

 when they are so much fractured, as is generally the case with 

 those found in gravel deposits. 



Vogt, indeed, has expressed the opinion that every gradation 

 may be traced between this species and our common brown 

 bear ( Ursus Arctos], and Brandt leans to the same opinion.* 

 Mr. Boyd Dawkins also says that " those who have compared 

 the French, German, and British specimens gradually realize 

 the fact that the fossil remains of the bears form a graduated 

 series, in which all the variations that at first sight appear 

 specific vanish away."*)" Whether, however, the cave -bear 

 will eventually be regarded as belonging to the same species 

 as the brown bear or not, it will still remain a well-charac- 

 terized variety, and one which has never yet been certainly 

 met with in the peat mosses, in the tumuli of Western Europe, 

 in the Danish shell-mounds, the Swiss lake -villages, or, in 

 short, associated with Neolithic remains. 



Mr. Busk, whose views have more recently been supported 

 by Dr. Leith Adams and Mr. Boyd Dawkins, has made the 

 very interesting observation that some remains of bear found 

 in our British caves and gravels are identical with the corre- 

 sponding bones of U. Ferox, or grizzly bear of the Eocky 

 Mountains. 



The cave-liycena, like the preceding species, is in Europe 

 characteristic of the Palaeolithic age ; by some authorities it 

 is now regarded as scarcely distinguishable from the Hyccna 

 crocuta, or spotted hy?ena of Southern Africa. 



Felis spelcea, the cave -lion, attained a somewhat larger 

 size than the lion of the present day, and possessed in an 

 exaggerated degree the characters by which that species is 



* Zoogeographisclie imd Palseon- t Pleistocene Mammalia, Paloe- 

 tologische Beitrage, 1867, p. 220. ontographical Soc. vol. xviii. p. xxii. 



U2 



