14 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 



Ursus arctos* Dr. Leith Adams, writing on ' Eecent 

 and Extinct Irish Mammals' ("Proc. Boy. Dublin 

 Soc," 1878), has very fully described several skulls 

 and other portions of ursine skeletons exhumed in 

 Leitrim, Longford, Westmeath, King's County, 

 Kildare, Waterford, and Limerick, and after com- 

 paring them with similar bones of Ursus spelceus, 

 U. fossilis, U. ferox, U. arctos, and U. maritimus, 

 has arrived at the following conclusion : — 



" A study of the osteological characters of these 

 ursine remains which represent all the authenticated 

 instances of discoveries hitherto recorded from 

 Ireland, appears to me to furnish characters referable 

 only to one species, which, on the score of dimensions 

 and general features, is inseparable from the so-called 

 Ursus fossilis of Goldfuss,f and at all events from 

 the smaller Spelean Bear found in English and other 

 deposits, as distinguished from the larger congener 

 found also in England, but more plentifully on the 

 continent of Europe. Unless the skull from Kildare 

 represents the Ursus arctos (and that, I think, is 

 doubtful),;); all the others seem to me to belong to 



* See Dr. R. Ball on the Skulls of Bears found in Ireland, " Proc. 

 Eoy. Irish Acad.," vol. iv. p. 416 (1850); Wilde, "Proc. Roy. Irish 

 Acad.,'' vol. vii. p. 192 (1862); Scott, 'Catalogue of Mammalian 

 Fossils discovered in Ireland,' "Jour. Geol. Soc. Dublin/' vol. x. p. 144 

 (1864) ; Dr. Carte, "Jour. Geol. Soc. Dublin," vol. x. p. 114 (1864). 



f The relationship between Ursus ferox and Ursus arctos is very 

 close, not only as regards fossil but also recent individuals, so much 

 so that by external appearance only they are indistinguishable. 



J A fine cranium 13J inches in length was found in cutting a new 

 channel for the river Boyne, in the barony of Carberry, co. Kildare ; 

 and is of peculiar interest from its resemblance to the Pyrenean 

 variety of Ursus arctos, to which it has been referred by Dr. Carte. 



