FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 1 19 



three fragments from the same place. Bruckmami, in his 

 description of the caverns of Hungary, declares that their re- 

 mains do not differ from those of the caverns of the Hartz ; 

 and he appears to have been the first who compared them to 

 the bones of the bear. 



As a proof the low state of cotnparative anatomy in those 

 days, we find Kundmann mistaking two teeth taken from Bau- 

 mann''s Hohle, one for that of the horse, the other for that of 

 a calf, whereas the first belonged to the bear, and the other to 

 the hyaena ; and we find Walch attaching to his figures, of 

 half a lower jaw and two canines of ursus, the pleasant obser- 

 vation, that they bore a certain resemblance to those of the hip- 

 popotamus ! 



Esper''s description of the caverns of Franconia contains a 

 great number of exact figures of portions of the head ; and 

 though there is no complete head, yet the fragments are suffi- 

 cient to distinguish the species from which they come, and 

 which may amount to three or four. This writer, however, 

 from his superficial knowledge of comparative anatomy, multi- 

 plied them far too considerably, making them nine in number. 

 Some that belong to ursus he sometimes refers to hyasna, 

 sometimes to phoca. There are, however, fragments belonging 

 to other genera than the bear ; some, for instance, to that of 

 the lion or tiger, one of the wolf, and some of the hyaena. 



M. Esper says, in a subsequent publication, that, having 

 procured the head of a polar-bear, he recognised its decided 

 identity with those of the caverns ; and M. Fuch, governor of 

 the pages of the king of Prussia, declares that, having had 

 occasion to see craniums of the fossil and polar-bear together, 

 he found the strongest resemblance between them. These 

 assertions only prove how easily the most remarkable forms of 

 skulls may be mistaken ; for of aU the bears the polar is pre- 

 cisely the one that has the least resemblance to the fossil. 



Accordingly, we find that celebrated anatomist Camper, in 

 a very early stage of his researches, putting a most decided 

 negative on this pretended identity. His principal reason is. 



