242 LECTURE IX. 



as furnish the greater number of bones, are those of extinct 

 animals. To these belongs the powerful cave bear (TJrsus 

 spelceitsj, whose skull is distinguished from the present species 

 by its great size, the constant absence of the small gap-teeth, the 

 curved forehead and the prominent frontal eminences, forming 

 a ridge upon the forehead. Though Blainville considers all 

 the remains of bears found in caves as of the same species and 

 identical both with the brown bear of Europe, and the grey 

 and the black bear of North America and Europe, aU other 

 naturalists have given as the results of their labours that the 

 difference between the cave bear and the present living species 

 is greater than that obtaining between existing different species, 

 so that we must either assume that all living- bears belong to 

 the same species, or that the cave bear represents an extinct 

 species. Along with the remains of the cave bear there are 

 found, though rarely, skulls which seem to form a transition 

 to the brown bear. 



The cave hyena {Hycena spelcea), also, is an extinct 

 species. It was larger and more powerful than the spotted 

 hyaena of the Cape, the remains of which have recently 

 been found in Sicilian caves. In caves of southern France 

 were also found the remains of a hysena resembling the striped 

 species. The cave lion {Felis spelcea), which in size and 

 strength excelled the present species of lions and tigers, is also 

 extinct. It is found up to the Harz, whilst an extinct species 

 of large cats {Felis antiqua) resembling the panther or leopard, 

 has hitherto been only found in the Franconian Jura and south 

 of it. 



To the extinct rodents belongs a beaver, (Troguntlierium 

 Cuvieri) the skull of which is larger by one-fifth than that of 

 the present species ; a hare {Lepus diluvianus) which is found 

 in the region of the Mediterranean, and seems to occupy an 

 intermediate place between the hare proper and the piping or 

 calling hare, {Lagomys) at present confined to northern Asia, 

 some species of which formerly existed in central Europe, but 

 are now extinct ; a squirrel -like rodent, {Sciurus priscus) which 

 is essentially distinguished from other species of squirrels, and 

 a digging mouse, {Arvicola brecciensis) almost the only con- 

 tents of osseous fissures in Sardinia ; even among the insec- 



