318 



THE DEER OF AMERICA. 



Let me again repeat that I am strongly inclined to the opin- 

 ion, however, that this is not a real case of hybridity, but that 

 the European stag and our wapiti should be ranked as specifically 

 the same, having descended originally from the same progenitors, 

 though for a long time they have been separated by impassable 

 physical barriers, and so have descended in separate lines, during 

 which permanent changes have taken place in each, many of them 

 diverging, or opposite, while in other and more permanent char- 

 acteristics, no change has taken place. But this question I con- 

 sider elsewhere. I regret that similar experiments have not to 

 my knowledge been tried with our moose and the European elk, 

 and our caribou and the Lapland reindeer. I doubt not that 

 they would breed freely together, with a fertile progeny. 



