64 report — 1842. 



shows the same interesting transitional state of dentition as has been dis- 

 covered in fossils from the continental bear-caves. 



The drift or diluvial deposits in several localities of England have yielded 

 remains of large carnivorous quadrupeds, and among these of the Bear. 



In the valley of the Thames this deposit affords considerable quantities of 

 brick-earth, and in working this material at Grays in Essex, and also at 

 Whitstable, remains of a large species of L'rsus have been discovered. 



An entire skull and portions of the upper and lower jaws of a bear have 

 been discovered in Manea Fen, Cambridgeshire, five feet below the surface. 

 The skull forms part of the collection of Piofessor Sedgwick : the portions 

 of the jaws are in the possession of Sir P. de M. Grey Egerton, Bart. 



These, though belonging to a genus extinct in Great Britain, can scarcely 

 be considered as fossil bones, and they are included in the present report, 

 rather as satisfactory objects of comparison with the remains of Bears from 

 the caverns and drift formations. 



I proceed now to inquire into the relations which the Bears, formerly inha- 

 bitants of this island, have to the existing species in Europe or other parts 

 of the world ; — an inquiry which the recent doubts pubbshed by If. de 

 Blainville as to the real nature of the specific differences pointed out by 

 Cuvier between the Cave Bears (L'rsus spelceus, U. priseus, Sec.) and the 

 existing species render more necessary. 



For this purpose I have critically compared most of our British fossils with 

 specimens from the German caverns, in the museums of this country, and 

 with the skeletons of the largest existing species, as the Vrsusferox, L. ma- 

 ritimus, arctos. See. 



Cranium. — John Hunter, who first instituted an anatomical comparison 

 between the Cave Bears and those of the present period, selected the great 

 Polar Bear for this purpose, as being the largest existing species with which 

 he was acquainted. Hunter, however, restricts himself to pointing out the 

 difference in the proportion of length to breadth in the skull of an old White 

 Bear and in that of the great Cave Bear : the individual skulls which he 

 compared are still preserved in juxtaposition in the Museum of the College 

 of Surgeons, as they were left by Hunter when removed by death from this 

 the latest field of his extensive and various researches. 



This difference in the proportions of the skull, though one of the most 

 striking between the fossil and recent species of Bears, is not the only one. 

 The last molar tooth of the upper jaw in the White Bear has a smaller an- 

 teroposterior diameter, and a narrower posterior termination. The inter- 

 space between the antepenultimate molar and the canine tooth presents the 

 remains of two sockets, one near the molar, the other near the canine, which 

 in young full-grown Polar Bears contain small and simple-fanged premolars. 

 The youngest specimens of Cave Bear which I have seen, exhibit no trace of 

 either of these small premolars, or of their sockets : they doubtless existed 

 in the foetus, but normally were very soon lost ; the exceptions are extremely 

 few in which their traces are visible in the jaws of full-grown Cave Bears. 

 The posterior palatal foramina are situated opposite the middle of the last 

 molar tooth in all the skulls of the White Bear examined by me, but oppo- 

 site the interspace between the penultimate and last molars in the skulls of 

 the Cave Bear. The zygomatic arches are wider and shorter, and the base 

 of the zygomatic process behind the glenoid cavity is more horizontal in 

 the White Bear than in the Cave Bear. The Grisly Bear (Ursus ferox), — a 

 larger species than the White Bear, and unknown to Hunter, — agrees with 

 the Cave Bear in the great proportional size of the last molar tooth, but the 

 interspace between the antepenultimate grinder and the canine is relatively 



