Distribution and Origin 
of Life in America 
CHAPTER I 
THE FAUNA OF GREENLAND 
Greenland geographically belongs to arctic America 
rather than to Europe, and, as it no doubt formed part of the 
land bridge that once connected America and Europe, its past 
history contains chapters of the greatest interest. Scanty 
as the fauna and flora of Greenland are, they afford us many 
a clue as to former changes of land and water which thftt 
country has undergone. Their study enables us also to trace 
the origin of the animals and plants of the neighbouring por¬ 
tion of continental America, which is one of the objects of 
the present work. 
Greenland is now too well known to need a long description. 
Yet few readers realise the vast size of this stern and 
uninviting country, which covers an area considerably larger 
than the whole of France and Germany together. Three- 
quarters, at least, of this area being completely buried 
under an enormous glacier ice-sheet, or inland ice, only a 
comparatively narrow belt of partly barren rocky ground is 
left along the shore on which animal and plant life is possible. 
The broadest exposed strip of land on the west coast of Green¬ 
land is about a hundred miles wide. Here and there two 
kinds of willows and the dwarf birch together form scrubby 
low-growing woods, the stems rarely rising more than a few 
feet from the ground. Thickets of alder, white birch and 
dwarf juniper likewise occur, while in sheltered nooks the 
L.A. B 
