﻿146 PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



EELIS SPEL/EA, Goldfuss, specifically identical with Felis LEO, LlNN^US. 



CONTENTS. 



§ 1. Introduction. § 2. Various opinions held by naturalists. 



§ 3. Conclusion. 



$ 1. Introduction. — In the preceding chapters we have analysed the differences 

 observable in skeletons of Lion, Tiger, and Felts spelcea, not founding our comparison on one 

 skeleton merely of either of the former animals, but comparing and noting the variations 

 in the form and proportion of the bones of all the individuals preserved in the museums 

 of London and Oxford. One fertile source of error in the work of previous observers has 

 been avoided — the use of the bones of animals kept in menageries, which are invariably 

 affected in direct proportion to the length of the confinement of their possessors, and to 

 the extent to which the natural habits have been restrained and curbed by domestication. 

 They are so deformed, and, if the cub has been born in captivity, so small and puny, that 

 they are absolutely useless as a means of comparison. Before we proceed to sum up the 

 bearing of the evidence on the recent affinities of Felis spelcea, we intend to quote the 

 opinions of the naturalists in chronological order, following to a certain extent the method 

 of M. de Blainville and Baron Cuvier. 



% 2. Various opinions held ly naturalists. — The first evidence of the discovery of 

 Felis spelcea is afforded by a figure x of an unequal phalange, appended to a paper on the 

 Dragons of the Carpathians, written by Dr. John Hain in 1672. It is most important, 

 because it brings the range of the fossil animal into the Hungarian Basin of the Danube. 

 Leibnitz, in 1749, 2 figured a fragment of skull obtained from the cavern of Schartzfeldt. 

 The plate contains four rudely executed figures, of which the upper may represent the 



1 Kecognised by Cuvier (' Oss. Foss.,' t. iv, p. 449, 2nd edit., 1822), and ascribed by him to Dr. 

 Vollgnad (' Ephem. Nat. Cur.,' an. iv, dec. 1, obs. clxx, p. 227). The latter, however, merely gives an 

 outline of a paper published in the preceding year by Dr. Hain (' Miscell. Nat. Car. Medico-Physic. Germ.,' 

 An. Ill, Obs. CXXXIX. "De Draconibus Carpathicis "). 



2 'Protogaea,' pi. xi, fig, 1, p. 62. 



