On the Recent and Extinct Irish Mammals. 49 
CARNIVORA. 
Cave Bear (Ursus fossilis vel U. ferox, fossilis.) 
Remains of Bears have been met with either in sub-turbary or 
cavern deposits in the following counties, viz :—Leitrim, Long- 
ford, Westmeath, King’s County, Kildare, Waterford and Lime- 
rick. 
There is no direct evidence as in England and Scotland to show 
that bears were contemporaneous with man in Ireland. Moreover, 
the ancient historians either omit any notice of the bear among 
the fere of the country, or, as in the case of St. Donatus, assert 
that it was not indigenous. Mr, Thompson refers to oral tradi- 
tion of its existence in early times,* and the Celtic name for a bear 
“Machsgamhuin” occurs often in ancient Irish literature. It may 
be the case that the bear became extinct before the advent of man, 
or that it may have been overlooked; but at the same time, from 
the facts that the cavern bears of England disappeared before the 
historical period, and before the Brown Bear, which survived up 
to the middle of the 11th Century, consequently if the views 
here stated are correct, viz—that there are no proofs of the latter 
species having frequented Ireland, and that all the ursine exwviae 
hitherto found in Ireland appertain to the Grisley Bear, then the 
likelihood of the extinction of the latter in Ireland before the ar- 
rival of man is in keeping with the disappearance of that species 
in Great Britain. 
Various natural historians in their descriptions of the different 
discoveries of Irish ursine remains have affixed specific appelations 
to the specimens, so that according to the latest List of Irish extinct 
Mammals no less than four species are enumerated.} 
The specimens on which the above determinations were 
founded are still accessible, and nearly all are contained in the 
Dublin Museum of Science and Art. 
The only recent bears with which the above require to be com- 
pared are the Brown, the Grisley, and the Polar Bears, and of the 
extinct species the Ursus fossilis of Goldfuss and the Gigantic 
* Nat. History of Ireland, vol. iv, page 30. 
+ Scott in Geological Magazine, vol. vii., and Hull, Jour. Roy. Geol. Soc. Dublin, vol. 
iv. (N.S.) Iomit Mr. Denny’s species (U. planifrons) as being founded or a generic 
character, subject to variations according to age. 
ScreN. Proc, R.D.S., Vou. 11., PT. I, E 
