BEARS. 121 



terrestrial, was the original idea of the genus Helarctos, but it has since heen made to admit 

 species which have not this title to distinction, and in particular this African Bear, which is not 

 a good climber. It is, however, said to be very different-looking from the common Bears. In South 

 America, in the Peruvian Cordillera, two non-arboreal species are fomad (Ursls ornatus and 

 TJ. ERUGiLEGUs), the former of which at least has a skull so like the Malayan arboreal species 

 as to be almost identical. The latter has not been subjected to the same examination as it. 

 This animal may have been modified out of the Malaj^an arboreal Bear into a mountain species. 

 It may perhaps be one of the traces proving a former connexion between Peru and the sunken 

 Pacific continent, which was connected on the other side with India and the Indian Archipelago. 

 In this instance the form of the skull seems to lead us to that view rather than to the other 

 alternative that it was derived from Bears driven south by the glacial epoch ; but in that case, 

 we must derive it from the true Bears (for which, however, there is no necessity) : if they did not 

 appear until that epoch had commenced, it inuy indicate that tlic submergence of the continent, 

 uniting Peru to India, did not take place until a more recent period than at first sight we might 

 imagine. 



The opinion which is now most generally received regarding the North American Bears is, 

 that they are different from the European ; that the Grizzly is difi'ercnt from the Bear west of the 

 Rocky Mountains, and that it again is distinct from the Mexican species. It is undeniable, however, 

 that they are excessively close to each other, and it is probably only because the differences are 

 more constant in Ajnerica than in Europe and Asia, that the former are admitted as specific, 

 while the latter are regarded only as varieties. 



Originally the Brown Bear inhabited Britain, — so long ago, however, that historical evidence 

 of their having done so is not easily procured ; but, in the first place. Professor Owen says 

 that the most recent formations in England contain remains which can scarcely be regarded 

 as fossil, and which, if not perfectly identical with, indicate only a variety of, the same species, which 

 is still common in many parts of the European continent.* In the next place, we learn from 

 classical, at least Roman authors, that they were imported from Britain for the tragedies of 

 the Roman Circus. Then Ray quotes authority for its being one of the Welsh beasts of chase ; 

 and, according to Pennant, it infested the mountainous parts of Scotland up to the j^ear 1057. 

 In an ancient Gaelic poem, ascribed to Ossian, the hero, Derraid, is said to have been killed by a 

 bear in Beinn Ghiel binn, in Perthshire.f 



There is, however, a later tradition, which I have little doubt is mythical or post-dated, viz. that 

 one of the Gordons in Scotland, so late as 1457, received the king's commands to carry three bears' 

 heads on his banner as his reward for his valour in slaying a fierce bear in Scotland.! The Bear 

 also occurred in Ireland. Skulls and remains have been met with in pcat-bogs and other super- 

 ficial deposits. One fine cranium, 13 j inches in length, was obtained in cutting a new channel for 

 the river BojTie, in the barony of Carbury and county of Kildare, and is of peculiar interest from 

 its resemblance to the Pyrencan variety of the Frsus arctos, to which it has been referred by 

 Dr. Carte, an eminent Irish osteologist, who examined it. The reader will remember that a 

 portion (the south-western) of the Irish flora has a certain affinity to that of the A.stirrias in 



* Owen's " British Fossils, Mammals, and Bii-Js." 1846. 



t " Statistical Account of Kiikmichacl in Banffshire," by Rev. J. Grant. J " History of the Gordons." 



R 



