| OCR Text |
Show 327 length of 2.81, and the six females an average length of 2.48, showing a considerable sexual variation in size. Yet the smallest males ( 2.64 and 2.63) fall below the largest female ( 2.68), if the skulls are all correctly marked. None of the other females, however, exceed 2.55, and only three of the males fall below 2.70. In the New York series, the sex is not indicated; but, judging from the proportion of the small to the large skulls, the sexes are about equally represented in the two series, but in the New York series there is a very gradual decline from the largest to the smallest. The northern series of eighteen is selected from a series of twenty- three: the New York series of thirteen from a series of thirty. In each case only very old skulls were chosen, the immature specimens in each case being thrown out in order to have a fair basis for comparison. The immature and middle- aged specimens greatly predominate in the New York series, owing, doubtless, to the species being more closely hunted there than in the more unsettled districts of the far north. Taking these two series as a basis for a general comparison, there is indicated a considerable decrease in size from the north southward, amounting to 0.26 in length and 0.24 in width, or about one- tenth of the average size of the New York series. A single specimen, marked " Brookhaven, Miss.", and another marked " Tuscaloosa, Ala. 7', however, have a length respectively of 2.60 and 2.80, the former equaling the largest New York specimens, and the latter nearly equaling the average size of the males of the northern series, while a single mate skull from Fort Randall, D. T., 2.90 in length, is the second in size of the whole series; one Fort Yukon specimen only being larger! Other specimens from the Upper Missouri region, however, are much smaller, as are other specimens from Prairie Mer Rouge, La., indicating that the specimens above mentioned are much above the average for their respective localities. No. 4 4 |
