i9°7- Reviews. 213 



who have studied Scandinavian animals have accepted without question 

 the total extinction of the fauna demanded by glacial geologists. As in 

 Ireland, so in Scandinavia, the Lusitairian element of the fauna appears 

 to be the oldest. The Alpine fauna raises many interesting problems. 

 Dr. Scharff points out that it is toa commonly identified with the Arctic 

 fauna. He quotes many authorities and marshals an array of facts in 

 support of the view that it passed into what is now the Alpine region 

 of Europe long before the Ice Age. The presence of species common to 

 the Alps and northern Europe is explained by a common Asiatic origin, 

 and not by a mingling in the European plain during glacial times. Our 

 familiar Irish Hare is quoted as a possible example of such an origin, 

 although the alternative possibility is suggested that our islands may 

 have formed part of the track by which this species passed from Scan- 

 dinavia to France, the Pyrenees, and the Alps. 



In his chapter on the fauna of the western plain of Europe Dr. Scharff 

 has much of interest to write on some of the most familiar of British and 

 Irish animals. The notes on the ranges of the Carrion and Hooded 

 Crows are especially valuable ; from the extension of the latter species 

 over north-western Europe cutting into the range ot the former, it is 

 concluded that the "Hoodie" is a younger and more vigorous species 

 then his black relation. The Rook, regarded as of more recent origin 

 than either, "may have come from Western Siberia with the Steppe 

 fauna, although, unlike most members of that fauna, it seems gradually 

 to extend its range in a westward direction at the present time." The 

 concluding chapters of the book dealing with the fauna of the eastern 

 and western Mediterranean are also of great interest. As in his recent 

 paper {Proc. R.I. A., xxiv., B. 1903), Dr. Scharff lays stress on the affinity 

 of animals from the Atlantic islands with those from the western 

 Mediterranean region and finds fresh support for the theory of a Miocene 

 Atlantis. Thus his book closes with a repudiation of the doctrine of 

 permanent oceanic basins, as it opens with a sceptical criticism of the 

 possibility of transport of animals to islands by marine currents, despite 

 the classical experiments of Darwin and the recent w r ork of Aucapitaine 

 in the same field. The writer of this review, w T ho began his studies of 

 geographical distribution with a not unnatural bias in favour of the 

 permanence of oceans as taught by Darwin and Wallace, has now been 

 led to believe, largely as a result of systematic work on the Collembola, 

 in the former extension of continental tracts across the oceans (See 

 Proc. R. Soc. Edinb., xxvi., 1907, p. 478). 



As to the discrepancy between the history of the European area as 

 interpreted by the zoologist who has written this fascinating book, and 

 by the vast majority of those geologists who have made a special study 

 of the later Tertiary deposits, it might be unwise to hazard an opinion. It 

 is to be hoped that the publication of Dr. Scharff's work will give pause 

 to dogmatic statements about the total extinction of the fauna of North- 

 western and Central Europe during the Ice Age. At the same time it is 

 a matter for regret that Dr. Scharff has ignored the geological facts that 

 tell against such an opinion as that " the whole of the existing Irish 



