THE HUMAN SPECIES. 117 



the Himalaya mountains, the booted of Egypt (Fehs 

 maniculata), the wild Indian (Felis Pennantii), and 

 the original tortoise shell all regarded as distinct ; yet 

 remaining prolific, with but small appearance of being 

 varieties. * 



Among Pachyderms, the horse, and still more evi- 

 dently, the domestic hog, by the great irregularity in 

 the vertebral column, &c., indicates a plural origin. 



Again, in Ruminantia, goats and sheep intermix, 

 producing permanently fertile hybrids ; although the 

 genus Ovis, exclusive of the Argalis, offers several 

 species in a wild state, which have themselves every 

 appearance of being the types of different domestic 

 races, that have been blended into common sheep after 

 they had been separately subjugated. Such are the 

 Sha, a species of Little Thibet ; the Koch of the Sulei- 

 many range, having only five molars ; the Persian 

 Sheep of Gmelin ; and the bearded or Kebsch of Africa, 

 which is sufficiently aberrant to have been placed in a 

 subgenus, denominated Ammotragus^ Another ex- 

 ample may be pointed out in the promiscuous breeding 

 of common cattle with Zebu (Bos Gibbosus, a species 



* There is, besides, the brown black-footed cat of north- 

 eastern Russia, and others that may claim a distinct origin ; 

 but whether the Jaguar of South America, and the black 

 variety (Jaguarete) forming a common cross-breed with the 

 Leopard of the old continent in our itinerant menageries, be 

 successively prolific, is not satisfactorily determined, though 

 the hybrids so obtained, are asserted to be both stronger 

 and healthier than a genuine breed. 



f I believe, by Mr. Blyth, who first distinguished several 

 of the above species. 



