ON THE WOLF OF NIPPON. 15 
from Octocyon, as the least differentiated member of the group 
to the Wolves, Lycaons, Cyons, and Northern Foxes, as the most 
modified forms.” And in the course of his remarks on the limits 
of species he expresses the following opinion :—“ As for species 
no one zoologist has ever yet agreed with the estimate of another 
as to what should be considered species and what local varieties 
among Wolves and Foxes; and, as there is no criterion by which 
the question can be decided, it is probable that such agreemen} 
never will be obtained. The suggestion that it may be as well to 
give up the attempt to define species, and to content oneself with 
recording the varieties of pelage and stature which accompany a 
definable type of skeletal and dental structure in the geographical 
district in which the latter is indigenous, may be regarded as 
revolutionary ; but I am inclined to think that sooner or later we 
shall have to adopt it.” 
Although agreeing with this view of Prof. Huxley, I am 
nevertheless inclined to think it advisable to bestow specific 
names on distinctly prominent and local forms, whether species 
or races. Thus the small Wolf of Nippon should have a special 
scientific designation. 
Unfortunately the name applied by Temminck to this animal 
is not a very suitable one, as Prof. von Martens rightly observes.* 
It would do well enough for those Japanese dogs which live in a 
wild state, but is not appropriate for a Wolf, which, according to 
Temminck, “lives in the wooded and mountainous regions of 
that island, avoiding the inhabited parts.” The orthography also 
varies in Temminck’s work between hodophylax, hodopylaa, and 
hodophile (hodophilus), with remarkable inconsistency. In view 
of this I beg to propose another name (instead of that unsuitable 
one) for the small Wolf of Japan, Lupus japonicus, to distinguish 
it on the one hand from Lupus vulgaris (Gray), and on the other 
from Lupus pallipes (Gray). In case it should be deemed better 
to retain the old specific name Canis lupus, characterizing the 
small Wolf of Nippon as merely a local race of it, it might be 
well to call it Canis lupus var. gapponicus. As regards the pro- 
bable origin of the Wolf of Nippon, it appears to me that two 
hypotheses may be considered—namely, that it is either a local 
* Temminck’s name hodophylaz, from sdopuawé, a watcher of the roads, 
a robber, seems to us a remarkably appropriate one for a Wolf.—Eb. 
