ON THE MINOR FAUNAL AREAS 9 



paper. I believe they have been accepted with a very fair 

 amount of unanimity as useful aids in the directions indicated. 

 In Buckley's and my own series of volumes " On the 

 Vertebrate Fauna of Scotland," we have adopted the areas 

 promulgated by the late Dr. Buchanan White (" Scot. Nat," 

 i. p. 1 60). But I already realise that certain modifications 

 will be desirable. But I claim some small degree of useful- 

 ness in these early attempts, in the light that they have 

 had some educative influence, and have given some impetus 

 and energy in the further development of local work. I 

 would desire to see attempts made to define Natural Areas 

 in England and Ireland as well as in Scotland. 



o 



The Rev. H. A. Macpherson has adopted Mr. H. C. 

 Watson's province for his " Fauna of Lakeland " (i.e. the 

 lake land of the north-west of England), chiefly comprised 

 within the political boundaries of the three counties of 

 Cumberland, Westmoreland, and North Lancaster. Even I, 

 who live at a distance, fancy I could point out at least six 

 Natural Faunal Areas of the rest of Great Britain, though 

 without local knowledge I could not describe them in detail. 



I do not desire here to enter into the question at least 

 in detail whether the areas which we have defined in 

 Scotland satisfy the botanists or geologists. I only wish to 

 advocate " method " from a faunal standpoint, though I 

 might discuss, from our restricted horizon, the aptitude of 

 the botanists' definitions of floral areas both of Scotland, 

 England, and Ireland^; but that is not my object now, any 

 more than it is my province to do so. 



Possibly in course of time (and time must be given) 

 botanists may agree as to the final outcome of plant dis- 

 tribution and dispersal, geologists may reconcile their differ- 

 ences, zoologists may arrive at many mutual conclusions 

 on different lines or groups of inquiry, and a platform 

 common to all be raised from whence to advocate a more 

 general and more generous unanimity. 1 



1 I desire to point out here that by "Minor Faunal Areas" I do not 

 mean to include still smaller areas which more correctly claim their treatment 

 under descriptive topography, as has been done by many able writers, amongst 

 whom I would place pre-eminently the admirable work of the late Mr. Stevenson 

 in his "Birds of Norfolk." His " Introduction " still stands foremost as an 

 English classic in this direction. 



