URSU8 PRISCUS. 83 



elevated than in the Brown, or Alpine variety, and 

 the flattened forehead passes into the nose with a less 

 sensible concavity than in the skull of the Fen Bear {fig. 

 24). The coronoid process of the lower jaw is rather 

 broader and higher, and the interval between the ante- 

 penultimate molar and the canine tooth is longer. 



By the latter character, a very interesting fossil of a 

 Bear, from the cavern called " Kent's Hole," near Torquay, 

 Devon, is referable to the Ursus priscus, heretofore only 

 known from the German cave- depositaries of Ursine remains. 

 The British fossil consists of a large proportion of a lower 

 jaw, with the incisors, canines, and the entire series of 

 molar teeth on both sides. The most perfect ramus is 

 figured from the outside at Cut 25, and beneath it the 

 entire right ramus of the lower jaw of the existing Euro- 

 pean species, for the illustration of the last cited character 

 of the greater relative length of the interspace between 

 the antepenultimate molar and the canine in the U. 

 priscus. The persistent premolar in front of the ante- 

 penultimate molar is in place, and the socket of the first 

 small single premolar is distinctly preserved in the fossil, 

 thus manifesting a well marked character by which the 

 Ursus priscus resembles the Ursus Arctos, and differs from 

 the Ursus spel&us ; in which, at least, that molar is most 

 commonly wanting, and its socket obliterated. The trace 

 of a socket of a second small single-fanged premolar is 

 visible in the jaw from Kent's Hole near the large pre- 

 molar, with which the series of grinding teeth commences, 

 and, in the Gailenreuth specimen, the corresponding small 

 premolar is retained in the upper jaw. 



The absorbent condition of the fossil jaw from Kent's 

 Hole hardly permits a doubt that it is of the same anti- 

 quity as the remains of the gigantic Ursus speleeus, found 



