241 
BRITISH BEARS AND WOLVES. 
By W. BOYD DAWKINS, M.A., E.R.S., F.G.S. 
I ITVHE lion, mammoth and reindeer, have already been dis- 
J_ cussed from the point of view offered by palaeontology and 
archaeology. In the present essay I intend to treat of the value 
of bears and wolves in classification, and to see how far they 
throw light on the ancient physical condition of Britain. In 
the latter respect we shall find that they offer testimony to the 
state of things, which is of no small importance to the student 
of early English and mediaeval history, while in the former 
they compel us to analyse M. Lartet’s method of sub- 
dividing the quaternary period. 
The genus bear has not been discovered in any deposits of 
greater antiquity than the pleiocene age, and is represented in 
Europe by many extinct species and several existing varieties. 
The British species are four in number : the bear of Auvergne, 
the cave and grizzly, and the common brown or black bear. 
Each species has its own peculiar range, both in space and in 
time. The first, or the TJrsus Arvernensis — the remains of which 
are preserved in the magnificent collections from the forest-bed 
of Norfolk made by the Rev. J. Grunn and the late Rev. S. W. 
King — was a creature of about the same size as the common 
European species, and armed with canines which are quite puny 
in comparison with those of the TJrsus spelceus. It has not yet 
been figured or described as a British species, and its remains 
are very rare. On the Continent, however, it is, as Dr. Fal- 
coner remarks, abundantly found in the pleiocenes of Auvergne 
and of the Val d’Arno. It has not yet been found in any of 
the German pleiocenes, nor in any strata younger than the pre- 
glacial forest-bed of Norfolk. We may therefore view it as a 
pleiocene carnivore of a southern kind, which ranged from 
Northern Italy, through France, as far north as Norfolk, before 
the lowering of the temperature during the glacial epoch, in 
company with several of the pleiocene species, such as the 
Gervus ardeus , Rhinoceros megarhinus , R. etruscus , Elephas 
mericlionalis , and Trogontherium Cuvieri. The whole group 
of animals besides the above, associated with the TJrsus Arver- 
nensis in Britain, is as follows : — 
