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o4 
NATURE 
and not indiscriminately. His quarry was the 
mountain sheep of the Upper Yukon basin; for it 
was incidentally his object to clear up the relation- 
ship of the local varieties or subspecies of this 
animal. In the event he is able to show that the 
three forms Ovis dalli, O. fannini, and O. stonei 
merge imperceptibly into each other. 
The main hunting-grounds described in the 
book lie in three separate parts of the little known 
mountainous country forming the eastern side of 
the Upper Yukon basin, and in each case the 
author believes that he broke new ground. His 
descriptions of the wild life of the region are 
touched in graphically, yet with due restraint; 
while the physical features of the land are readily 
deducible from the narrative and from the accom- 
panying illustrations. 
It is inevitable in a book of this type that there 
will be passages likely to give pain to a reader 
to whom the slaughter of wild animals is repellent. 
For instance, anyone but a toughened hunter may 
wince, after reading of the killing of a she-bear, 
to find mention of “the wailing of the cub pealing 
wildly through the mists above” among the 
author’s night-impressions that brought to him 
“the wild enchantment of the wilderness” (p. 30). 
In recording another and still more painful inci- 
dent of the chase, the author himself is moved to 
consider the singular psychology of the hunter- 
sportsman in whom “an intense fondness for the 
wild animals” is combined with “his paradoxical 
love of hunting and killing them” (p. 46). Is it 
not, indeed, just one among the many of men’s 
doings in which there is a present-day clash 
between old-rooted instincts and new-born sym- 
pathy, with instinct proving in most of us, as yet, 
the stronger ? 
One of the author’s journeys was made in com- 
panionship with another mighty hunter, Mr. F. C. 
Selous, who has already published an account of 
the trip. Thus, in a few instances, the sportsman- 
reader can refer to two separate and independent 
narratives of the same chase. 
The author’s sincere eulogium on the ably- 
recorded exploratory work of the late Dr. G. M. 
Dawson, of the Geological Survey of Canada, on 
the head-waters of the Yukon (pp. 185-7), will be 
read with pleasure by all who cherish the 1nemory 
of that most capable and indomitable man. 
Besides its numerous photographic illustrations 
of the usual type, the book is embellished with 
some spirited coloured pictures of animal life, by 
C. Rungius. The appendices include a_ short 
bibliography; a list of animals; a reprint of the 
original descriptions of northern sheep; and a 
table of horn-measurements. 
(Ge WWE I. 
NO. 2213, VOL. 89] ; 
[Marci 28, 1912 
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pe 
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