242 Ihe Irish Naturalist. [November, 



that a comparatively rich fauna and flora can and do survive in some 

 of the coldest known regions of the globe. How much more may this 

 have been the case in the far more southern Glacial regions of past 

 times. But we think. Dr. Scharff goes a step too far when he asks us to 

 regard our mammals as survivors from a Pre-glacial age, and he certainly 

 makes a grave mistake in expecting us to believe that the two forms 

 of Stoat (Putorius ermineus and P. hibernicus), of Bullfinch {Pyrrhula major and 

 P. europced), or of Hare {Lepus europaus and L. mediterraneus) represent, in 

 each case, a double influx to Europe of its respective species. Rather can 

 we only regard these forms in the light of modern changes to suit peculiar 

 climatic conditions. Mammals are so plastic, that were our mammalian 

 fauna of anything like the age Dr. Scharff would like to make it, it 

 would surely be the case that not only the few species which we 

 know to have become more or less altered, but all our species would 

 be distinct from those of Continental Europe, and might even have 

 progressed far enough along the course of differentiation to have become 

 distinct genera. We believe then that Dr. Scharff's views on this point, 

 while they may apply to invertebrates like Geomalacus macubsus, to 

 plants like Arbutus Unedo and Etip/iorbia hiberna, and even to the Natterjack 

 Toad (Bufo calamitd) cannot be applied to our mammals. As regards 

 birds the case might be different, for they could always escape by 

 migration from seasonal severity of temperature. Dr. Scharff does not 

 pin himself down to the belief that our fauna survived in any supposed 

 large extension of Western Europe. Such extensions there may 

 have been in comparatively recent times, but a study of Mr. W. H. 

 Huddleston's paper on " The Eastern Margin of the North Atlantic 

 Basin" (Geol. Mag., March and April, 1899, pp. 97-105 and 145-157) seems 

 convincing that if there were such, they are not likely to have been of 

 ver) r great area, and it is questionable if they could have been of sufficient 

 extent to support our whole fauna and flora. Is it possible that one 

 place of refuge for the endangered species of Glacial times could have 

 been the great tract of low-lying land which is presumed to have occupied 

 the present basin of the Irish Sea ? 



In his eagerness to prove his case, Dr. Scharff seems to push his 

 arguments as to the mildness of the Glacial period too far. It was right 

 to reduce the over-estimates of other writers, but surely we must assume 

 a rather severe climate in Glacial times to explain the dispersion of 

 such forms of life as issued from the Arctic centre of origin which Dr. 

 Scharff himself advocates, and to explain the forcing over the equator 

 into Antarctic regions of such northern types as the Camelida and the 

 Skuas, and the migrations right over the equator of birds like the 

 Gray Plover (Sauafaro/a helvetica) which winter in the southern and 

 summer in the northern hemispheres. (By-the-bye, why does Dr. 

 Scharff assume (p. 255), that the Wagtails are of southern rather than 

 northern origin, because, although most of them "have a somewhat 

 northern range," " almost all of them pass the winter in southern 

 latitudes ? " Surely the converse is the obvious inference). Further we 

 were of the opinion that a gradual amelioration of our climate had been 

 well-nigh proved, even for early histoiical times (see Boyd Dawkins' 

 "Pleistocene Mammalia"), and that the periods represented in Europe, 



