2i6 l^he Irish Naturalist. 



of an ancient freshwater lake on the site of the present Irish 

 Sea and St. George's Channel, with land-connections to the 

 north and to the south of it, across both of which animals 

 passed into Ireland, will be seen to correspond with the sub- 

 divisions of our fauna which I have here suggested. As Dr. 

 Scharff states that the land-connections in question were of 

 Pliocene age, it is clear that he does not believe in the total 

 extinction of our fauna either by land-ice or by submergence 

 during the Pleistocene Period, which is generally held by 

 geologists and zoologists. For the reasons for this disbelief 

 we must await the publication of his promised large memoir. 

 I would, however, call attention to the fact that Mr. Jukes- 

 Browne^ locates a lake in a similar situation during the 

 Pleistocene Period, after the Ice Age had passed away, and 

 the land had risen once more from the glacial sea. He sup- 

 poses the immigration of our fauna to have taken place then. 

 But, whether earlier or later, it seems clear that the animals 

 of the Celtic fauna were passing, one group southwards, the 

 other northwards, between the St. George's lake and the coast 

 of the Atlantic, then far to the west of the present Irish coast- 

 line, before the animals of the Teutonic fauna crossed the site 

 of the present North Sea into Great Britain. The breaking 

 down of the land-connections with Ireland, and the conver- 

 sion of the St. George's lake, first into a gulf, and then into a 

 sea-channel, prevented, as has been pointed out by Dr. A. R. 

 Wallace'' and other naturalists, the extension of these into 

 Ireland. 



The distribution in Ireland of Otionhynchus auropicndatus 

 recalls that of the land-snail, Helix pis a?ia, which inhabits our 

 eastern coast to the north of Dublin, extending however only 

 from the south of Co. I^outh to Rush in Co. Dublin^ but 

 appearing in Great Britain at points in South Wales and 

 Cornwall. Its distribution abroad extends all over the 

 Mediterranean region and to the Madeira, Canaries, and 

 Azores. Another distinctively Mediterranean animal, the 

 ground-beetle Nebria complanata, now placed by Dr. 

 Ganglbauer^ in a peculiar genus, Eurynebria, is also 

 characteristic of the east coast of Ireland, but is found onl}^ to 



1 " The Building of the British Isles," London, 1888, p. 298^ PI. xiv. 



' "Island Life," 2nd ed., London, 1892, p. 379. 



2 " Die Kafer von Mitteleuropa," vol. i, AVien, 1892, p. 98. 



