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Show 1897.] BLUE BEAR OF TIBET. 415 the Catalogue of the Zoological Collections of H. M. Prejevalsky, p. 9 (St. Petersburg, 1887), reference to a Tibetan Bear under the name of U. lagomgarius, which is probably the present form. And, if this name has been properly published, it will probably stand for the species, if the term prulnosus is to be superseded. A very noticeable feature in the British Museum skin is the curious approximation which it makes to the type of coloration distinctive of JEluropus melanoleucus of the same region. This is especially shown by the pure white band on the hind nape, followed by the black interscapular patch ; and less markedly by the tendency to blackness on the ears and forehead. Is it too much to consider that this type of coloration has been produced in both animals by similar environment ? I think not. Of what advantage to its owner may be the peculiar coloration of Mluropus has never been determined. It may be suggested that in a forest country where snow lies deep in the winter, the black shoulder-stripe and limbs with the white of the rest of the body would be very inconspicuous among dark tree-stems ; but such an explanation affords no clue to the advantage of this very remarkable type of coloration in summer, when we may presume snow would have disappeared from the forests. Moreover, it is not certain that both forms do not dwell above the forest level. I now come to the very difficult question whether the brown and greyish Bears of the Northern Hemisphere form more than one species. Very different views are held on this subject by different writers, and as the literature is extensive, I shall not attempt to give a summary of what litis been written. A few examples of different view's may, however, be advantageously cited. Midden-dorff l, in a long essay on the subject, came to the conclusion that all the Bears of the U. arctus group in both the Eastern and Western Hemisphere were merely varieties of but one species. On the other hand, Gray2 not only split them up into a number of species, but actually separated some of them generic-ally. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in his work is the separation of a Brown Bear from Norway, as Myrmarctos eversmannl3, from the Brown Bear of Sweden, which is regarded as referable to the typical U. arctus. Moreover, he identifies one of the Kamschatkan skulls described by Middendorff as U. arctus var. beringlana with the former, whereas the other is regarded as referable to a subspecies (collaris) of U. arctus. In 1877, tbe late Mr. George Busk ' referred all the living Old World Brown Bears to varieties of U. arctus. A n important statement in this paper regarding the fossil Pleistocene Brown Bear of Europe ( U.fossills of Goldfuss) runs as follows : - " This form has appeared to m e to coincide so very closely wdth the existing U. ferox or horribilis of North America, that I was induced some years 1 Sibir. Keise (1851). 2 See Oat. Carniv. Brit. Mus. (1869). 3 This is founded on a young skeleton in the Museum. 1 Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. x. p. 53 et seq. |