222 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



forms is based, nevertheless identify them with accuracy. I have 

 no doubt that occasionally late breeders of one form may inter- 

 breed with early breeders of the other, and thus give rise to 

 hybrids which would show intermediate characters ; but this must 

 be quite exceptional, and I may confidently affirm that among the 

 126 specimens which I have examined (forty-one typical R. 

 escidenta and eighty-five R.fortis) not one has struck me as con- 

 stituting a link between the two forms. 



So long as the races of Rana escidenta were believed to occur 

 in different districts, the importance to be attached to them was 

 lessened, since all species which have a wide geographical range 

 exhibit such differences, which may be ascribed to climate or other 

 causes. But now that two quite distinct races are shown to live 

 in the same locality, ))revented from interbreeding by the difference 

 in the time of spawning, the question assumes a very different 

 aspect, and it seems that the subject deserves full attention. I 

 would therefore beg my colleagues in various countries, where 

 numbers of aquatic frogs fall daily under the scalpel of anato- 

 mists and physiologists, to observe whether any varieties of the 

 kind here mentioned occur. I myself propose to devote much 

 attention to the subject, and am anxiously collecting material for 

 the elucidation of the geographical range of the races of Rana 

 escidenta. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Sir Edwin Landseer's Red-deer. — As a rule, with scarcely an excep- 

 tion, every recognised masterpiece of art has risen rapidly in price until it 

 has finally passed out of the region of traffic and become literally priceless. 

 One such masterpiece has lately changed owners for a sum which may well 

 be termed enormous. Sir Edwin Landseer's famous painting in oil, " The 

 Monarch of the Glen," exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1851, and since 

 made universally known by Thomas Landseer's engraving of it, was 

 bequeathed by Lord Londesborough, father of the present peer, to Lady 

 Otho Fitzgerald, and on the 10th May last was put up for sale by auction, 

 by Messrs. Christie, Manson & Wood. The nation had once a chance of 

 obtaining this fine picture for an almost nominal sum, inasmuch as Sir Edwin 

 offered it to the Commissioner who supervised the artistic decorations of 

 the Houses of Parliament for £300; but the offer was declined, and the 

 picture was subsequently purchased by Lord Londesborough for 800 guineas. 



