1885.] DR. F. H. H. GUILLEMARl) ON OVIS NIVTCOLA. 675 



moment to call to mind a fable of the Monkey who had seen the 

 world. Now, supposing the Monkey to have been a collector of 

 animals, and in Europe to liave obtained some white people with red 

 or fair hair, and upon his arrival in Africa to have met with the Negroes 

 blac/e as jet, v/'\ih^at noses, thick lips, and black woolly heads, I think 

 he would have been justified in regarding them as a very well-marked 

 and distinct species. We are, however, in a position better able to 

 understand that time, climate, food, and other circumstances may so 

 change the condition and apj)earance that the original type may 

 be said to have disappeared altogether. I venture to say this 

 change is now taking place, however slowly it may be. It is noticeable 

 in America, and doubtless in a few generations (without fresh arrivals 

 of Europeans) the descendants of Eurojjeans are gradually developing 

 the peculiarities of the original natives of that country. 



Ill conclusion I feel it is necessary to offer a few words in defence 

 of naming animals that are nearly allied and calling them by 

 new names, in order to constitute them as species. This practice 

 has of late received a check ; and it appears to me a very reason- 

 able and proper mode of treating the subject to consider a large 

 number of the animals that exhibit a few trifling differences to be 

 only local varieties of the same species. At the same time we must 

 bear in mind that in order to do this we should seek for intermediate 

 forms or individuals that may be regarded as uniting two e.\tremely 

 different creatures. In the present instance I have failed to find 

 any animal showing this tendency to be intermediate between this 

 animal and the well-known Chimpanzee. 



7. Remarks on Ovis nivicola. By F. H. H. Guillemarb, 

 M.A., M.D., P.L.S.^ F.Z.S., &c. 



[Eeceived June 16, 1885.] 



The few notes I have on tiie habits and structural peculiarities of 

 the Kamschatkan Wild Sheej), Ovis nivicola, Eschscholtz, a series 

 of the skulls of which I have the honour of exhibiting, may possibly 

 be of interest. 



In the beginning of August 1882, Mr. Kettle well's yacht 

 ' Marchesa ' arrived in Petropaulovsky, and shortly afterwards a 

 small party, of which I was a member, started on an expedition 

 through the centre of the peninsula, and, striking the great 

 Kamschatka River near its source, descended it a distance of 450 

 miles to the sea. Our land journey led us through more or less 

 mountainous country, and we had hoped to obtain information 

 concerning Big-horn at Gunol, a little settlement of cross-bred 

 Siberians and Kamscbatdales, in the centre of the southern part of 

 the peninsula. Near this place is a small range of low mountains, 

 bare and rocky, about three or four thousand feet in height, the 

 summits only of which were covered with snow. We were informed 



