Adams — On the History of Irish Fossil Mammals. 95 



2. A superb cranium without the mandible is now in the pos- 

 session of the Earl of Enniskillen, who has kindly furnished me with 

 the following particulars regarding its discovery. It was given to 

 him by Mr. Young, of Monaghan, who told him that he received it 

 from a navvy, and that the latter found it near Ballinamore, in the 

 county of Leitrim, when digging the Shannon and Erne Canal. 



The exact stratagi'aphical position is therefore wanting, but 

 from the light colour of the specimen as compared with the black 

 colouring of the bones from the mud of Loch Gur, it may be presumed 

 that the skull was found in the shell marl, or else the sub-lacustine 

 clay. 



The only teeth remaining are the canines and last molar. The lat- 

 ter is 42 X 22 millimetres, and has the contracted posterior of the Grisly 

 and the Vrstis fossilis of Goldfuss. The zygomatic arcade is not so 

 broad comparatively, nor are the posterior nasal openings so wide as 

 in Ursus arctos. In these two particulars the specimen coincides with 

 crania of the Grisly and Ursus fossilis. It differs from Ursus spelceus 

 or the gigantic cave Bear in' the shape of the last molar and size of the 

 posterior nares, which are apparently narrower in the latter than in 

 any of the foregoing. 



The maximum length of the skull is 15 inches, and greatest width 

 9i inches. Mr. J. Allen states that, out of crania of eight recent 

 Grisly Bears examined by him, five were 14+, three over 15, and one 

 was 16 inches in length. The maximum breadth of none of these, 

 however, attains to that of the Leitrim skull, the width of the largest 

 being only 8^ inches. ^° 



3. j^early an entire skeleton was found in situ in Shandon cave, 

 in conjunction with the exuviae of the Mammoth, Hare, Reindeer, Red 

 Deer, Wolf, and Fox. The bones are enumerated by Dr. Carte, F.L.S., 

 in his Report on the Shandon remains, and referred by him to Ursus 

 spelmus and Ursus arctos?^ The specimens are in the Museum of 

 Science and Art. 



The cranium is in fragments, but several molars and the left 

 ramus of a very aged Bear, besides a fragment of a right ramus, evi- 

 dently of a larger individual, remain. There is a diseased condition 

 of the left ankle-joint, whereby the chstal extremity of the fibula and 

 corresponding surface of the tibia show extensive exostosis, which 

 must have greatly impeded the movements of the animal as far as its 

 predaceous habits were concerned ; however, the Grisly Bear of North 

 America, like its Brown congener, can subsist entirely on vegetable 

 food. All the teeth of the above are larger than any of U. arctus I 

 have seen. 



The fragments of the maxillae show the sockets of the small pre- 

 molars as in the Leitrim skull, whilst the 4th p. m. is bitubercular, and 



■^'' Geographical Variation among North American Mammals. 



■''' Journal of the Royal Dublin Society, vol. ii., p. 12. Plates xi. and xii. 



