No. 494] 



ZOOLOGICAL PROGRESS 



far obtained number only six. The first was collected in 

 New Zealand and dissected by Sir Richard Owen. The 

 second, for which no locality is known, was purchased 

 by the British .Museum from a dealer and dissected also 

 by Owen. The third was collected near Port .lackson. 

 Australia, and is now preserved in the Sydney Museum. 

 The fourth was dredged near New Guinea by the " Chal- 

 lenger" and was studied by Huxley and Pelseneer. The 

 fifth was taken by the dredge in the West Indies by the 

 United States steamer "Blake," and the sixth was 

 caught near Sumatra in a deep-sea net by the German 

 expedition on the "Valdivia." If an animal as common 

 as the Spirula must be, is known only by some six speci- 

 mens, what a host of rare and undescribed species the 

 ocean must contain. 



Not only are the ocean basins treasure stores of unde- 

 scribed species, but the land areas are also far from ex- 

 hausted. Itwould seem fair to have presumed that of the 

 terrestrial quadrupeds certainly all the larger and more 

 striking species had been described, and yet, since the 

 opening of the new century, a large cloven-hoofed mam- 

 mal in general appearance somewhat between a donkey 

 and a giraffe has been discovered in the Semliki forests 

 of central Africa. This remarkable mammal was sought 

 for in 1900, at first unsuccessfully, by Sir Harry John- 

 ston, who finally succeeded in obtaining a skin and a 

 skull from which the animal was described by Lankester 

 in 1902. The natives call it okapi and report it by no 

 means rare, and yet it remained almost to the present 

 time without being known to science. But the naturalist 

 is not obliged to search the deep sea or to journey to 

 central Africa for new species. There is hardly an order 

 of insects that could not be enriched with new forms by 

 a season's collecting even within the limits of New York 

 City, and it must therefore be evident that the half-million 

 of species now described is only the beginning in the in- 

 ventory of nature 's stores. 



In addition to the discovery of new species in nature, 



