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 spécifically 
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. J doubt not that 
they would breed freely together, with a fertile progeny. 
