CARN1VORA. 



URSUS. 



Fig. 24. 



77 



URSIDJE. 



Ursus Arcios. 



UKSUS ARCTOS, Nat. size, Fens, Cambridgeshire. 



Genus, UESUS. 



OWEN, Report on Brit. Association, 1842. 

 MORRIS, Brit. Fossils, 8vo, 1843, p. 214. 



As the order Oarnivora includes the most noxious and dan- 

 gerous quadrupeds, and those which most oppose themselves 

 to the profitable domestication of the useful herbivorous 

 species, it has suffered the greatest diminution through 

 the hostility of man, wherever the arts of civilization, and 

 especially those of agriculture, have made progress. 



At the present day the three families of the Carnivorous 

 Order, which include the largest and most formidable of 

 the beasts of prey, have been so reduced, that they are 

 severally represented in Great Britain in a wild state, by a 

 single species of diminutive size. Of the Canid<e, or Dog- 

 tribe, the Fox alone retains its primitive freedom and pre- 

 daceous habits of life : the Wild-cat still lingers in remote 

 mountain thickets, as the type of the Felida, ; and the 

 harmless Badger is the sole representative, in our present 

 indigenous Zoology, of the Ursidee, or Bear-tribe. 



