846  W. Davies—On the Bones of the Lynx from Teesdale. 
III.—On some Bones or tue Lynx rrom TRESDALE, OBTAINED BY 
Mr. James BackHousE or York. 
By Witu1am Daviss, F.G.S. ; 
of the British Museum. 
(PLATES XI. anv XII.) 
HE evidence relating to the habitation in England at some 
distant period of a species of the section of the genus Felis 
represented by the Lynx, rests, up to the present time, upon a portion 
of a skull and a ramus of a mandible, which were discovered in a 
cavernous fissure in rocks of Permian age, in Pleasley Vale, Derby- 
shire. They were found by Dr. Ransom, who communicated an 
interesting paper descriptive of the fissure and its contents, to the 
British Association Meeting held at Nottingham in 1866, and the 
fragments were then referred to the Lynx of Northern Asia (Felis 
cervaria). Subsequently they were examined by Professor Boyd — 
Dawkins, who, after carefully comparing the skull, jaw, and teeth, 
with the corresponding parts of other species of Lynxes, and also 
taking into consideration its geographical range, says, “that they 
may be referred with equal justice to the Lynx of Norway and 
Sweden ” (Felis borealis). 
To the foregoing evidence may now be added two bones of the 
limbs, a humerus and a metatarsal, discovered under similar con- 
ditions, and associated with the debris of a similar fauna which had 
been deposited in a rock fissure in the Carboniferous Limestone in 
Teesdale, Durham. The specimens formed part of a very mis- 
cellaneous collection of bones sent to me for examination by James 
Backhouse, Esq., of York, who, in conjunction with his sons, Mr. 
James and Mr. W. E. Backhouse, discovered and explored the “ cave,” 
and themselves, with the assistance of a miner, extracted the various 
objects found therein. These consist of remains of many kinds of 
animals, but all of species now existing, and, eliminating a few forms, 
probably still native to the district. The bones of the Lynx are in 
excellent preservation, and were it not for some slight abrasions of 
the margin of the scapular articulation, and of the great trochanter, 
the humerus might be pronounced perfect. It belonged to an adult 
animal, somewhat smaller than the Northern Lynx, as represented by 
a skeleton of a large individual from Sweden (British Museum Col- 
lection, 1280a), with which I compared it. The annexed measure- 
ments of the recent and fossil bones will show their relative propor- 
tions, and general correspondence. In the fossil the space posterior to 
the ridge which descends from the lesser trochanter, and to which is 
attached the first head of the anconeus medius muscle, is more deeply 
depressed, otherwise the two bones are so alike that there can be 
little doubt as to their specific identity. Of Felis cervaria there is 
no skeleton in the National Collection, so that I have been unable 
to learn by comparison whether it possesses characters by which it 
could be differentiated from its northern relative. 
* Monographs of the Paleontographical Society, 1868, Pleistocene Mammalia, 
part ui. p. 174. 
