1896. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 221 



postulate a separate primary origin for these genera of the sub-family 

 Soricinse. A boreal migration of austral forms leaving no trace behind 

 them, save possibly part of their tails, for there are no shrews in South 

 America, seems a strange surmise. Dr. Merriam must mean that the 

 short-tailed forms first became specialised in the region of their now 

 southernmost settlement, and that they have subsequently retreated 

 northward. This may be so. 



In looking through these publications, the conviction is forced 

 upon one that " they know how to do things in America," and one 

 wonders what work will be left for the poor fellows of the next genera- 

 tion. So far as North America is concerned, at any rate, there will be 

 no new species to discover nor any work to be done in unravelling 

 synonymy, for this is all done so thoroughly by the writers of these 

 monographs. They know, too, how to print books in America ; in this, 

 as in their other Government publications, both the paper and type 

 are all that can be desired, and might well be commended to the notice 

 of the " Printers to the Queen's most excellent Majesty." 



The Antarctic Fauna. 



The affinities of the Antarctic Fauna have recently been 

 discussed from two points of view. On the one hand, Haacke and 

 Wallace, impressed by the primitive character of many of the 

 inhabitants of the southern terminations of the continents, have 

 argued that all the forms of life originated in the northern hemi- 

 sphere, and thence gradually worked their way to the south. On 

 the other hand, the advocates of a southern continent have pointed 

 out resemblances between the animals of Australia, the Cape, and 

 Patagonia, and explained these as due to descent from a common 

 Antarctic fauna. To these Dr. John Murray has now added a third 

 speculation, which he explained in his lecture at the Royal Institution 

 on February 28. In a recent memoir published by the Royal Society 

 of Edinburgh {Transactions, vol.- xxxviii., pt. 2, no. 10, 1896, pp. 343- 

 500, I map), he has given a full list of the deep- and shallow- water 

 marine faunas of the Kerguelen Region of the Antarctic Ocean. This 

 list shows that there are in the colder waters of the northern and 

 southern hemispheres a considerable number of identical or closely- 

 allied species, which are separated from each other by the tropics. 

 As Dr. Murray puts it, " the marine faunas towards either pole are 

 genetically more closely related to each other than to any intervening 

 fauna " ; but it is also held that very few of the deep-sea species are 

 universally or even widely distributed, and the community of species 

 between the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans is, therefore, a very striking 

 fact. It is this difficulty which Dr. Murray's theory is founded to 

 explain. According to this, throughout Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic 

 times, life was restricted to the shallower parts of the oceans, which 

 had a uniform temperature throughout, probably of about 70° Fahr. 



