236 Miscellaneous. 



Ursus priscus of Goldfuss from Gailenrutli cavern, and the existing 

 largest varieties of Vrsus arctos, or the Irish bears. These specimens 

 have much strengthened, if not quite confirmed, a growing suspicion 

 that TJ. priscus is specifically identical with, and was the progenitor 

 of, our European U. arctos ; at the same time, they prove that TJ. 

 priscus was not the mere female, as ISI. De Blainville believes, of U. 

 spelcBus. Your three specimens are all of the same species ; the 

 largest is the male, the smallest with well-worn molars, the female. 

 Now the large male skull establishes the specific distinction of the 

 equally large male Ursus spelceits, and consequently the specific and 

 not merely sexual distinction of U. priscus ; but at the same time, the 

 Irish crania show that the character of the forehead alluded to in my 

 'British Fossil Mammalia,' p. 83, is not constant, and not good for 

 a specific difference with Ursus arctos. To conclude, then, as at 

 present informed, I should refer your Irish skulls to Ursus arctos ; 

 and the least degenerated representative of that species now living, 

 viz. the great black bear, or very dark brown variety of the Scandi- 

 navian wilds, is that which comes closest to the old Irish bears. 

 Whether this respectable carnivore continued to exist after the 

 slaughter of the last megaceros, will be shown by the precise bed in 

 which the specimens were found. I should Hke to know the authority, 

 if any, for their derivation from peat bog, and not from shell marl, if 

 the case be so. 



" Ever yours, 

 " (Signed) R. Owen.'* 



Mr. Ball was of opinion, from examination of the original bear 

 skulls, that they were not in the peat, but in the marl below it, where 

 he believed all the heads of the megaceros, probably fifty, which he 

 had closely inspected, were found. In no case was peat to be dis- 

 covered in the cavities, while in many marl was present. He ex- 

 pressed his gratification in finding that his own views were supported 

 by those of Professor Owen, from whom, on this and other occasions, 

 he had received kind aid. He also expressed his obligations to the 

 Earl of Enniskillen, Mr. Baker, Mr. Cooke, and Mr. Warren, and 

 concluded by moving the thanks of the Academy to Mr. Abraham 

 Whyte Baker, sen., for his kindness in presenting casts of his valuable 

 specimens to its museum of antiquities. 



On the employment of Tar to preserve Wheat from the Attack of the 

 Weevil. By M. Caillat. 



In a late number of the * Comptes Rendus ' a note appeared by M. 

 G. Barruel relative to the action of carbonic oxide upon weevils and the 

 employment of this gas for their destruction. Some journals, and 

 among others ' L'Echo Agricole,' very lately published another means 

 of destroying these insects, pointed out by Mr. William Little, and 

 which consists in the use of ammoniacal gas. This young English 

 chemist states that in the presence of this gas the weevils perish 

 instantly, as if struck by lightning. 



I have proved, before several witnesses, that ammonia does not kill 



