98 URSID^E. 



of the hind-foot (metatarsals and phalanges), by their size 

 and general ursine characters, to belong to the Ursus 

 speleeus, from different Cave localities in England : but none 

 of these bones have presented any well-marked modification 

 of form by which they might be distinguished, in addition 

 to their size, from the corresponding bones in the smaller 

 extinct and existing species of Bear. But the coincidence 

 of such appreciable modifications in the femur, ulna, and 

 humerus, of the great Cave Bear, with those in the form 

 and proportions of the head, and in the form and the 

 relative size of certain teeth, offer as good grounds for the 

 specific distinction of the Ursus spelaus as for that of the 

 Ursus maritimm, or of any other existing species defined by 

 Pallas and Cuvier, and admitted by the best modern zoolo- 

 gists. 



The question which the Palaeontologist ought to propose 

 to himself in his first survey of the fossils of any particular 

 district, is the value of the differential characters which 

 such remains may present, as compared with those which 

 distinguish the living species, according to the zoological 

 systems and principles of the time being. It is true that 

 the extent of the influence of external causes, operating 

 through a vast series of ages, has not yet been determined ; 

 but this only renders it the more imperative to take cog- 

 nizance of all modifications in fossils which, according to 

 present knowledge, cannot be so explained. 



To refuse to recognise such differences as have been 

 pointed out in the skeleton of the great Cave Bear, because 

 they may be accounted for by a hypothetical degeneration 

 of the specific type, and thereupon to record the fossil 

 species as the primaeval state of the present Ursus 

 Arctos, seems a voluntary abandonment of the most valuable 



