454 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



perhaps refer to the intimate connection between the first two 

 neck-vertebrae. 



Reverting to the Old World, M. Marcellin Boule, in the 

 first volume of the Annates de Paleontologie (Paris), has instituted 

 a careful comparison between the osteology of the cave-lion and 

 that of its existing representative. More important is his state- 

 ment that the smaller Felis arvemensis of the Upper Pliocene 

 agrees in the characters of the lower jaw and dentition with the 

 lion rather than with the tiger, thereby suggesting that it may 

 have been the ancestor of the former. 



A point of some interest has been raised by Dr. E. Lonnberg, 

 of Upsala (Arkiv. Zool. Stockholm, iii. art. 14), with regard to 

 the systematic position of the giant extinct Irish deer, or so- 

 called Irish elk, Ccrvus giganteus. Hitherto this ruminant has 

 been regarded as a near relative of the fallow deer. Dr. 

 Lonnberg, on the other hand, would have us believe that it is 

 a kind of aberrant reindeer ; this opinion being based in some 

 degree on the fusion of the vomer with the adjacent bones 

 of the skull. 



In a notice of this paper in the Field newspaper, the present 

 writer has, however, pointed out that the front cannon-bones 

 of the Irish deer appear to indicate that the lateral metacarpals 

 were of the " plesiometacarpalian " type characteristic of the 

 fallow-deer and its relatives. If this be correct, there will be 

 strong evidence of the correctness of the old view. 



In connection with Ireland, it may here be mentioned that 

 Mr. R. J. Ussher, in the Irish Naturalist for November, has 

 given a preliminary account of the excavation of the contents 

 of the ancient " hyaena-dens " in the Mammoth Cave, near 

 Doneraile, County Cork. Although all the remains at present 

 identified appear referable to the ordinary cave-species, this is 

 the first record of the occurrence of the cave-race of the African 

 spotted hyaena in Ireland. In another serial {Proc. Roy. Irish 

 Acad. xxvi. No. 1, 1906), Dr. R. F. Sharff has described and 

 figured jaws from the Newhall Caves, county Clare, which he 

 regards as referable to the Egyptian wild cat {Felis ocreata or 

 maniculata), although it is doubtful if the evidence is sufficient. 



Passing to Cyprus, we find that Miss Dorothy Bate (Geol. 

 Mag. decade 5, iii. pp. 241-5) has given an account of the skeleton 

 of the pigmy hippopotamus (Hippopotamus minutus) obtained 

 by herself from a cavern in that island, and now mounted in 



