ZOOLOGICAL POSITION AND STRUCTURE 33 



goats and sheep would interbreed, although he had 

 no information whether the hybrids were fertile ; 

 and recently another writer, Mr. Krauts {Revue des 

 Sciences Naturelles Appliqudes, Paris, 1891, p. 71), 

 has definitely recorded the birth of hybrids between 

 goats and ewes. Again, so long ago as 1782, 

 Molina, in his Saggio sulla Storia Naturale del 

 Chile (p. 332), stated that 'the natives of the 

 Cordillera, by coupling the goat with the ewe, have 

 created an intermediate race. Its size is double 

 that of the ewe ; its fleece is formed of very long 

 hairs as supple as those of the Angora goat, a trifle 

 wavy, and very similar to wool.' Molina was 

 followed by Claude Gay, who wrote in his Historia 

 de Chile, Agricultura (vol. i. p. 465), that ' this 

 absolutely hybrid race is derived from the goat and 

 the ewe. . . . What is more singular than its origin 

 is the fact that it is fertile, reproducing itself to the 

 third and fourth generation, or even indefinitely, 

 that is to say, at certain elevations.' 



" In neither of these accounts, it will be noticed, 

 is there any direct first-hand evidence as to the 

 hybrid origin of the chabins. And their reputed 

 cross-bred character is definitely denied by Mr. 

 Ferdinand Lataste {Actes Scientifiques du Chili, 

 vol. i. p. 2, 1 891), who spent some years in Santi- 

 ago as director of the museum, and who asks why, 

 if such a phenomenon is so common in Chile, it is 

 unknown in Europe. In this incredulity Lataste 



C 



