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experience and knowledge in the bones of Pleistocene 
animals, and must know the risks of damaging that 
reputation in giving an opinion upon a matter like this 
without full consideration; but as he had the bone in his 
possession for nearly one month, it could not be said he 
formed his opinion in a hasty manner. 
Notwithstanding this deliberately expressed opinion of 
Professor Dawkins that it belonged to a young bison, I was 
not alarmed for my small reputation as a palaeontologist, 
or convinced that he was right. I had myself seen and 
examined sacral bones of both oxen and bears, and always 
found the differences between them far too striking to be 
mistaken. I was sure this bone could never be bovine, 
and I had a firm opinion that it was Cave Bear ; moreover, 
I considered that nature could never be so hard up for 
variety as to give to the stiff-backed oxen tribe a sacrum 
that could be confounded with the sacrum of the lithe and 
flexible hindquarters of the bears. 
However, I set myself to the study of bears and oxen, 
took the bone with me whenever I had a chance of 
comparing it with bones in public museums and private 
collections, and sent it for examination and report to 
gentlemen, who have made comparative osteology their 
special study, and without exception the opinions I received 
were unanimous in one respect, that it was not the sacrum 
of a bison, or even of a bovine animal — but the sacrum of 
a bear. 
It is not necessary, nor do I intend, to mention the names 
of gentlemen to whom I here allude ; their opinions were 
formed pretty much like my own by direct comparison only, 
without going into the minute anatomical points of the 
differences of structure between sacral bones of bovines and 
ursines. Comparison is usually a safe method of deter- 
mining species in natural history, and it applies with equal 
force with bones, or portions of bones, when authenticated 
specimens can be obtained for comparison. 
