78 URSID^E. 



History, however, points to a period when this island was 

 infested by Bears and Wolves ; but the superficial drift de- 

 posits, turbaries, limestone caverns, and the more recent 

 tertiary strata have yielded evidence, not only of the re- 

 mains of the common Bear and Wolf, but of other more 

 strange and formidable beasts of prey, which appear to 

 have perished anterior to the records of the Human race. 



The Brown Bear (Ursws Arctos) infested the mountainous 

 parts of Scotland, according to Pennant, so late as the year 

 1057, and 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. Of these remains, the most perfect is 

 the entire skull, figured at fig. 24, of a bear, discovered in 

 Manea Fen, Cambridgeshire, five feet below the surface: 

 it is preserved in the Woodwardian Museum, at Cam- 

 bridge, and forms one of the very numerous and valuable 

 additions to that collection made by Professor Sedgwick, to 

 whom I am indebted for the opportunity of describing and 

 figuring the specimen. I have, likewise, to acknowledge 

 the liberal transmission by Sir P. de M. Grey Egerton, of 

 a considerable part of the upper jaw and an entire under 

 jaw of the same species of bear from the same locality, 

 which have aided me in the comparisons instituted between 

 these remains and the known existing and extinct species of 

 Ursus. 



In size the Bear of the Fen was very little inferior to the 

 great extinct Cave-bear (Ursus spelteus), but it may be 

 readily supposed that the Brown Bear and Black Bear of 

 Europe have degenerated from the stature to which their 

 progenitors, enjoying a wider range and more varied and 

 nobler prey, attained. 



