f CAN1S LUPUS. 15 



differently coloured skins, namely " yellowish," " brownish," and 

 "whitish grey." 



Of the two skulls in the British Museum, the larger one comes from 

 the province of Yesso a region which has Palaearctic affinities. The 

 small one is from the province of Kotsuke, which is more Oriental in 

 its zoological character. They may well therefore be nothing more 

 than local varieties, differently modified in harmony with their respec- 

 tively diverse environments. This quite agrees with what we find in 

 the American continent, where the difference of the lengths of the 

 skull of a number of North-Mexican and Hudson-Bay wolves amounts 

 to no less than twenty-five per cent, of the average size in the whole 

 series *. 



Altogether, we cannot yet see our way to advancing the Japanese 

 variety to the rank of a species. Our view is in harmony with the 

 opinion expressed by Professor Huxley, who, when specially studying 

 the Canidae, had the advantage of seeing a living specimen of this form. 

 He says f : "The Japanese C. hodopltylax, of which there is a fine 

 specimen now living in the Gardens, appears to be simply a small form 

 of wolf ; but in the absence of any accessible skulls of this form, I 

 refrain from giving any definite opinion." Having ourselves now had 

 the opportunity of examining two skulls, we are in a position to con- 

 firm the provisional opinion above quoted, based on the inspection of a 

 living specimen. 



Habitat. Treating, then, all the herein noted forms of the Wolf as 

 mere varieties of the one species, C. lupus, we may say that the animal 

 has an exceedingly wide geographical range, extending, as it appears to 

 do, throughout the whole of the Pala3arctic region, with the single 

 exception of Africa north of the Sahara, and ranging southwards over 

 Hindostan, without, however, extending to the island of Ceylon, nor 

 into Burmah or the Indian Archipelago. In America it ranges over 

 the whole continent northwards from the State of Guanajuato in 

 Mexico. 



* Alston, loc. cit. p. 66. 

 f P. Z. S. 1830, p. 274. 



