256 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
exceed the dimensions of any living representatives of the 
brown bear, but approach in this respect to the former ; so 
that, considering the comparatively modern histories of many of 
the deposits of these fens and turbaries, it has been surmised 
by Mr. Busk, in his admirable report already referred to, that 
the grizzly bear lingered on in England and Ireland to com- 
paratively speaking recent times, probably up to the pre-historic 
epoch, when the deer andbovine tribes were plentifully distributed 
over the country. Now, considering that all these fossil bears 
were co-existent, and taking into consideration that they were 
placed, more or less, on the same footing as regards food, it can 
scarcely be that the small were degenerate descendants of the 
large, the differences in size being too great for such a supposi- 
tion, unless we are to believe that a far greater variability 
existed then than now, in which case degeneracy would have 
been a marked character in many species. We might believe, 
however, from the great tendency to variation in dimensions 
and colouring already pointed out in the case of the brown 
bear, and the cavern-haunting propensities of the larger or 
aged individuals, that the great fossil cave bear (U. speloeus) 
stood in much the same relation to the U. ferox fossilis , 
and was only a large variety of the latter, just as, in all 
probability, the so-called “ gigantic urus ” stood to the 66 great 
wild bull ” (Bos primigenius). In fact, abundance of food 
and unrestricted freedom are as necessary conditions of the 
prosperity of an animal as the contrary produces a stunted and 
deteriorated race. What long ages have passed away since the 
beaver built its dam on the banks of the Thames, or the hippo- 
potamus, elephant, and rhinoceros fed on its banks ; when 
herds of enormous oxen, deer, and the like pastured freely over 
the country, before man had invented any more deadly imple- 
ment than a flint arrow or a stone hatchet ? Finally, we 
come to the mutations in the physical aspect of the continent, 
together with the subsequent struggles for existence and 
gradual disappearance of the species until only the deer-wolf 
and brown bear remain of all the large animals which then 
frequented Europe. Indeed, it is only necessary to survey the 
remains found in England alone, to become satisfied that 
the large assemblages of carnivorous and herbivorous quadrupeds 
were denizens of the area, at a period when our island was not 
only a portion of the continent of Europe, but when its climatic 
and topographic conditions must have been different from what 
obtain at the present day. 
None of the following species of bears have hitherto been 
discovered in fossil states. This circumstance, however, may be 
owing more or less to the fact that the soils of the countries they 
frequent have not been subjected to The same searching scrutiny 
