692 
Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
On Some Remains of Scottish Early Post-Pliocene 
Mammals. By the Rev. Professor Duns. No. II. 
(Bead May 15, 1899.) 
At the meeting of the Society on the 20th February 1893 1 had 
the honour of reading a paper “ On the Early History of some 
Scottish Mammals and Birds.” Perhaps the title both of that 
paper and of the present should he “ Remarks on the Literature 
associated with some Early Post-Pliocene Mammals.” 
The science of a Species means much more than the naming of 
its several parts by Latin and Greek derivatives. Even as regards 
these parts, one would like to know something of extinct forms at 
the time when they had a place among the living, just as, when 
dealing with recent forms, we find much to shed light on the 
structure, probable habits, and surroundings, especially of mammals 
which became extinct in quaternary time. Questions arise that 
are worth noting, were it for nothing more than to make it clear 
that the mere obiter dicta even of able and wide-minded experts 
may often he misleading. The tendency which prevails to deter- 
mine species by characteristic bone-marks can never he perfectly 
satisfactory, because there are many instances in which close 
structural resemblance is associated with great dissimilarity of 
habit. It is not so easy as some seem to think to distinguish 
between several of the long bones of the wolf with the correspond- 
ing bones of the collie, or between those of the sheep and of the 
goat. Then, as to footprints on stiff, tenacious quaternary clays, 
is there any risk of a label? — “marks of the feet of a small 
ruminant ” — the marks being those of the feet of Sus scrofa ( ferns ) 
and not of gentle Ovis aries, L. 
Another word as to the title ! When I intimated my first paper 
I was specially anxious to let it be known where certain specimens 
I had hoped to show are ‘ housed ’ — chiefly a noble skull of the 
urus and the mammoth tusk. They are often referred to in recent 
