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Extinction of Species: Ursus

THE CAVE-BEAR, Ursus spelœus, of Rosenmüller. The appearance of this species has been preserved to us in the drawing by Palæolithic man found in the cave of Massat (Arieze). * Fr. μάχαιρα “a sword,” and ὀδούς "a tooth."

It occurs in the Cromer Forest Bed, a deposit referred by Mr. Boyd Dawkins to the early part of the Glacial period, and generally regarded as transitional between the Pliocene and Quaternary. It is also found in the caves of Perigaud, which are considered to belong to the reindeer era of M. Lartet or the opening part of the Recent period, and numerous discoveries of its remains at dates intermediate to these have been made in Britain and in Europe. Carl Vogt, indeed, is of opinion that this species is the progenitor of our living brown bear, Ursus arctos, and Mr. Boyd Dawkins also says that those "who have compared the French, German, and British specimens, gradually realize the fact that the fossil remains of the bears form a graduated series, in which all the variations that at first sight appear specific vanish away."

It has been identified by Mr. Busk among the associated mammalian bones of the Brixham cave. Its remains are very abundant in the bone deposit of the Trou de Sureau in Belgium, and in the cavern of Goyet, which it tenanted alternately with the lion and hyæna, and, like them, appears to have preyed on man and the larger mammalia.

Mr. Prestwich has obtained it in low-level deposits of river gravels in the valleys of the north of France and south of England, and it has been obtained from the Löss, a loamy, usually unstratified deposit, which is extensively distributed over central Europe, in the valleys of the Rhine, Rhone, Danube, and other great rivers. This deposit is considered by Mr. Prestwich to be equivalent to other high-level gravels of the Pleistocene period.