Miscellaneous. 219 



male with a dark ashy-brown neck, with a mane of longer, more 

 rigid, standing-out hair. Female hornless. 



Like Hyelaphus po?'cinus, but more slender and graceful in all its 

 parts, and higher on its legs, like an Axis Deer ; much darker than 

 the Axis ; it has no oblique white streak on the haunches, and the 

 male is maned like the Indian Rusa. 



The male has shed his horns since his arrival in the Gardens. 

 They are short, not more than 10 or 12 inches long, and in form 

 rather like those of the Axis Deer, but they scarcely seem the 

 full-sized horns of the species. Perhaps they were developed in 

 confinement. 



It may be Rusa lepida of Sundevall, but that is described as being 

 scarcely as large as a Roe-buck ; the tail black, white beneath, and 

 with a white spot on the face, which I cannot see in this Japanese 

 species. The male is not described as maned. 



Prof. Agassiz on the Origin of Species. 



We copy from the advance sheets of Agassiz's third volume of 

 'Contributions to the Natural History of the United States' the 

 following paragraphs relating to the origin of species, which has lately 

 attracted much attention, in consequence of the publication of Darwin's 

 book on that subject. 



Individuality and Specific Differences among Acalephs. 

 The morphological phsenomena discussed in the preceding section 

 naturally lead to a consideration of individuality and of the extent 

 and importance of specific differences among the Acalephs. A few 

 years ago the prevailing opinion among naturalists was, that while 

 genera, families, orders, classes, and any other more or less compre- 

 hensive divisions among animals were artificial devices of science to 

 facilitate our studies, species alone had a real existence in nature. 

 Whether the views I have presented in the first volume of this work 

 (p. 163), where I showed that species do not exist in any different 

 sense from genera, families, &c, have had anything to do with the 

 change which seems to have been brought about upon this point 

 among scientific men, is not for me to say ; but, whatever be the 

 cause, it is certainly true that, at the present day, the number of 

 naturalists who deny the real existence of species is greatly increased. 

 Darwin in his recent work on the ' Origin of Species,' has also done 

 much to shake the belief in the real existence of species ; but the 

 views he advocates are entirely at variance with those I have 

 attempted to establish. For many years past I have lost no oppor- 

 tunity of urging the idea that while species have no material existence, 

 they yet exist as categories of thought, in the same way as genera, 

 families, orders, classes, and branches of the animal kingdom. 

 Darwin's fundamental idea, on the contrary, is that species, genera, 

 families, orders, classes, and any other kind of more or less compre- 

 hensive divisions among animals, do not exist at all, and are altogether 



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