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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
THE BRITISH LION. 
BY W. BOYD DAWKINS, M.A., F.R S. 
T he British Lion has generally been considered to be an 
offspring of the imagiDation of the heralds, and yet, in 
reality, it presents as good credentials for its existence as those 
afforded by the British Wolf, Bear, or Beaver. In the follow- 
ing pages the identity of Felis spelcea, the great British feline 
that inhabited the post-glacial caves, with the existing Lion, will 
be shown, as well as its ancient range in the Old and New 
Worlds. But, first of all, a few of the chief opinions held by 
"naturalists as to its affinities will be given. 
The first evidence of the discovery of Felis spelcea in the 
district north of the Tyrol, Alps, and Pyrenees is afforded in a 
plate appended to a paper by Dr. Haine on the dragons of 
Hungary, and was published in 1672. A fragment of skull 
from the cave of Schartzfeldt was figured by Leibnitz in 1749, 
and described in the text as “vera elephantium ossa.” It is 
compared by Soemmerring with the skulls of Lion and Cave 
Bear, and also with those of other species of the same genus, 
and is considered by that eminent naturalist to have been that 
of the Lion. In 1744, Esper published an account of the 
mammals found in the margravate of Baireuth, in which he 
figures an upper feline jaw from Grailenreuth cavern. He 
obtained also detached teeth and bones. He refers them all to 
an unknown animal closely akin to the Lion. Rosenmiiller, in 
1804, states that he is about to publish a work on an unknown 
fossil animal of the genus P'elis, but he adds that its bones 
differ in some respects from those of the Lion. Dr. Groldfuss, 
in 18 10, published a small work on the environs of Muggendorf, 
in which a nearly perfect skull is figured and described as Felis 
spelfm — a name which was adopted by Cuvier and by all subse- 
quent naturalists. He considered that it belonged to an extinct 
HfKJcies more closely allied to the Panther than to the Lion or 
Tiger. Drs. Pander and D’Alton state in 1822 that Felis spelcea 
differs specifically from Felis leo, and refer to their figures in 
support of that statement. The figures, however, supply no 
