Nova Acta Academie Nature Curiosorum. By A! 
figured and described by Collini, in the “* Acta Academiz Theodoro- 
** Palatine’’ for 1784, with a recent skull of the Hyena Crocuta. From 
this comparison he concludes that the recent and fossil species can scarcely 
be distinguished from each other; an inference strengthened by a similar 
comparison of a fossil bear’s skull from Gailenreuth with a recent one 
from Lithuania, and of a portion of the fossil lower jaw of a wolf from the 
same Cayern with a recent lower jaw from Saltzburg. ‘‘ There existed 
** therefore, he says, “‘ in the primitive world, a species of Hyzna, of 
** Bear, and of Wolf, which can with difficulty be distinguished from 
“* living species of those genera.” 
The authour next proceeds to compare the skull which forms the 
immediate subject of his paper with that of Collini, and finds that it 
belongs, as Cuvier had previously remarked, to a distinct species, Hyena 
fossilis or spelea; the distinguishing characters between which and the 
other hyznas, both recent and fossil, are stated to consist in the greater 
shortness of its facial when compared with its cerebral portion, the 
greater prominence of its forehead, and its general colossal stature, Its 
substance is carefully investigated, and it is shewn to have belonged to an 
adult and probably an aged individual. The nature of the wound and 
the mode of its reparation are then considered at length, and illustrated 
by valuable observations with regard to the formation of callus, and the 
other stages of union in the bones both of men and animals. By the 
application of the principles thus obtained to the fossil in question, it is 
shewn, as might indeed have been conjectured a priori, that in the 
primitive world the union of broken bones in the Mammalia was _pro- 
duced in the same manner as at the present day. Then follow the 
authour’s reasons for believing the injury to have resulted from the bite 
of a hyena; and the paper concludes with the expression of a belief 
that the fossil hyzena to which this skull belonged had its primitive abode 
at no great distance from the place where its remains were found after 
some thousands of years; and with a retractation of the early opinion 
of the authour, founded on imperfect data, that the fossil remains found 
in the Gailenreuth cave had been deposited there by the hands of man, 
M, Constantin Gloger’s Memoir ‘ Ueber den Nestbau der Zwergmaus 
&e.’’ contains the description of two very different nests, in each of 
