Ill 
Being in London in February, I waited upon Professor 
Owen, at the British Museum, and submitted the bone to 
his experienced judgment. He most kindly undertook to 
make a thorough examination of the bone, and give me his 
opinion. A few days after I called upon him again, when 
he took great pains to show me a number of sacral bones of 
bears and bison, and point out the clear differences between 
them in certain points, and in what way it could be proved 
that my specimen belonged to the bear and not to the 
bison, at the same time giving me the results of his deter- 
mination in writing, with full permission to use it in any 
way that would serve the purpose of my enquiry. 
“ British Museum, 8 th February , 1876. 
“ The fore end of the sacrum yields the best and readiest 
characters for distinguishing that of an ox from that of a 
bear. In the Ruminant the pre-zygapophyses present each 
a long longitudinal semi-cylindric channel, for the corres- 
ponding convexity of the post-zygapophyses of the last 
lumbar vertebra. 
“In the Bear the pre-zygapophyses of the first sacral, 
present a short suboval flat, or almost flat, surface, which 
becomes slightly concave below through the production of 
the mesial border of the process. 
“ In the Ox the symphysial surface for the ilium is in great 
part presented by the transverse process of the first sacral, 
which is much produced, these processes give a winged 
character to the fore part of the sacrum ; the surface itself 
is long, narrow, and looks backward more than outward. 
“ In the Bear the transverse process of the first, is little 
longer than of the second, sacral, and it is much thicker in 
proportion to its length than in the Ox. The second sacral 
contributes a larger proportion to that surface than in the Ox. 
“The neural spine of the first sacral in the Bovines is 
long (lofty), compressed, and becomes confluent with the 
second, as this with the succeeding sacral spines, to form a 
continuous bony crest. 
