394 Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



escape from man, will not return willingly : pheasants, partridges, 

 deer, hawks, etc., are samples of this group. 



The third class, which comprises by far the greater number of 

 animals, are altogether incapable of domestication ; many will breed 

 in confinement, but all will escape to savage life immediately that 

 an opportunity offers. 



These three classes are well marked, and it appears doubtful 

 whether it is possible to transfer an animal from one to the other. 

 Thus, notwithstanding the long series of years that pheasants have 

 been reared in a state of semi-domestication, it is impossible to 

 render them as perfectly domesticated as the common fowl. On the 

 other hand, wild jungle-fowl and the wild rock-dove may be reared 

 from the nest, and will become at once perfectly domesticated in their 

 habits, a result which it is impossible to obtain with even the most 

 closely allied species belonging to the same genera. 



It is doubtless the want of attention to there psychical differences 

 that has rendered the efforts of the European Acclimatization 

 Societies so abortive ; in fact, it is very doubtful whether any animals 

 exist at present in a wild state, that are capable of being perfectly 

 domesticated so as to be useful in civilized communities. 



ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.— April 24. 



On a New Passage Across the Isthmus of Panama. — Mr. 

 Laurence Oliphant read a short narrative of a journey which he 

 had made from Panama to the Chepo, or Bayanos River, which 

 enters the Pacific about thirty miles to the westward of the former 

 place. Between this point and the Gulf of St. Bias, the Atlantic 

 and the Pacific approach nearer to each other than they do in any 

 other part, and the object of the paper was to call attention to the 

 fact that, during the many surveys which had been undertaken 

 with a view to discern the most practical line for a ship canal, this 

 part had been neglected. The neck of land which divides the 

 Atlantic from that point on the Bayanos River to which the tide of 

 xhe Pacific extends, is only fifteen miles across, and however in- 

 credible it might seem^the writer had not been able to learn that 

 this short distance had ever been crossed, much less explored by a 

 white man. In 1837, Mr. Wheelwright attempted it, but was 

 driven back by the Indians, and some years later Mr. Evan Hop- 

 kins started with a view of exploring this route, but was compelled 

 to abandon it for the same reason. The object of the writer in his 

 visit was simply a reconnaissance, the persons in whose company 

 he made the trip having no idea of exploration, but merely visiting 

 the little settlement of Chepo, where they had bought an estate. 

 He was unable to reach so far as Terabla, where the influence of 

 the Pacific tides ends, and where an expedition to cross to the 

 Atlantic would have to start from ; but he saw from Chepo a very 

 remarkable depression in the mountain chain, about ten miles 

 distant. He was repeatedly assured, both at Panama and at 

 Chepo, that the Darien Indians were in the habit of hauling their 

 canoes on wooden slides across the Cordillera, from the Mandinga 



