QUATERNARY FAUNA OF GIBRALTAR. 71 
The only difference in the fowrth metacarpal is the greater compression of the shaft 
in the Gibraltar bone. 
The first metatarsal is of exactly the same length as that of U. ferox; and the only 
difference between the two is that in the Gibraltar bone the proximal articular surface 
is broader and less produced at the inner and posterior angle. 
As regards U. arctos, as the only metacarpals belonging to that species that I have 
been able to compare with the Gibraltar bones and those of U. ferox are from a young 
individual, and in which the epiphyses are not fully completely united, though nearly 
so, I am not able to say more, making allowance for their much smaller size, than 
that they appear in the compression of the shaft of the fourth and fifth, and in the 
comparatively small size of the distal capitulum, to bear a very close resemblance to the 
Gibraltar bones}. 
Doubt being thus left as to which, if either, of the two generally recognized forms 
above noticed the Gibraltar species should be referred to, it will be interesting to recall 
the circumstance of the discovery, about the year 1866 or 1867, by M. Bourguignat, 
in a cavern at Djebel-Thaya, in the province of Constantine, in Algeria, of abundant 
ursine remains, which were considered by him to belong to four distinct species, dif- 
fering considerably, as it would appear, not only in size, but also in the relative pro- 
portions of the bones of the extremities, the teeth, &c. 
The first published notice of this discovery appeared in 1867 2, in which a brief 
description is given of a form upon which M. Bourguignat has bestowed the name of 
U. faidherbianus, founding his diagnosis, however, solely upon the lower teeth. In the 
next year he published the discovery, in the same cavern, of three more forms, to 
which he assigns the rank of species, viz. U. lartetianus, letowrneuxianus, and rou- 
vieri*®. M. Bourguignat was led to conclude, upon evidence which he has not, so far 
as 1am aware, yet published, that these different forms belonged to different epochs, 
which nevertheless appear to have overlapped each other. 
The oldest form, to which he assigns as its latest date 8500 B.c., is U. lartetianus; 
the next in point of antiquity is U. letourneuxianus, which came down from about 
8000 to 3500 3B.c.; whilst the other two (U. rowvieri and U. faidherbianus) are traced 
to quite a recent epoch, and even, according to M. Bourguignat, may be still existing or 
have but very recently become extinct. 
It is much to be regretted that M. Bourguignat has not as yet given more detailed 
‘ Tt is much to be regretted that neither in the British Museum nor in the Royal College of Surgeons are 
there any satisfactory materials for studying the osteology of the Common European Brown Bear in the wild 
state. The bones of long-caged animals are so generally deformed, and especially in the Bear, which seems to 
peculiarly liable to chronic rheumatic arthritis, as to be wholly useless for any purpose of paleontological 
comparison. 
* Notice sur un Ursus nouyeau. Paris, 1867. 
* Notice prodromique sur quelques Urside d’Algérie. Paris, 1868. 
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