1896.] - Loology. 755 
the mainland observed one in his canoe when in mid-ocean, and on 
reaching mainland saw it jump ashore and escape. 
Yours faithfully, J. H. KEEN. 
The Inheritance of an Acquired Character.— Editor Amer- 
ican Naturalist: It has been my fortune recently to have brought to 
my notice an instance illustrating Darwin’s theory of the origin of 
species, that seems to me noteworthy. 
A certain Mr. J. B. Perry, a resident of Cleveland, is the owner of a 
very fine female fox-terrier, which has recently given birth to a litter of 
seven puppies, five of whom are remarkable from bas: fact that they 
were born with short tails. 
These five were male puppies, while the two with tails ef ordinary 
length are female. 
Of the five short-tailed dogs one has almost no tail at all, it being but 
a little stump not over half an inch long. 
When I examined them they were just two weeks old and barely had 
their eyes open. The tails of the females had been recently cut, and the 
scar on the stump was plainly perceptible, while the ends of the five 
short tails were entirely grown over with hair, and plainly were born in 
the condition I found them. Their length was about half the ordinary 
length, or about what is considered the “ proper thing ” by dog-fanciers, 
except in the case of the one already mentioned as having almost no 
tail at all. 
When it is remembered that the custom of cutting off over half of 
the caudal appendage of the fox-terrior has prevailed for many genera- 
tions back in the ancestry of a thoroughbred, the birth of short-tailed 
dogs is not to be wondered at. Yet this instance is so striking that it 
seems worthy of being brought to the notice of the readers of the 
AMERICAN NaTURALIST.—NorMAN E. Hits. 
The Hartebeest (Alcelaphus).—This large genus, despite its 
number of species, is sharply defined, and though at first sight the 
caama and tsessebe, bontebok and Hunter’s hartebeest, seem very indif- 
ferent, yet they possess horns of such a characteristic ty pe, have features 
and habits so much in common, that it seems a useless multiplication 
of names to separate this genus into subgenera. 
Although to us the caama is the best known species, at once arresting 
our attention by its ugliness, yet the earliest known kind was the buba- 
line hartebeest of the north, the bukyel wash, asthe Arabs eallit. For, 
on the Egyptian monuments there often appears the figure of an ox 
with unmistakable hartebeest horns, harnessed to the chariots of the 
