1896.] Carpenter. — Mhifj^ling of the North and South. 65 



remnant of the Ice Age. The plants of Watson's British, 

 English, and Germanic t3'pes were all referred by Forbes to 

 one great Germanic invasion which, after the -Ice Age, over- 

 spread most of our islands. To decide the time of the 

 incoming of the various groups of our animals and plants is 

 however very difficult. Mr. A. G. More' considers our entire 

 flora, including the Pyrenean species, to have come in since 

 the Pleistocene cold period, while Dr. Scharff = believes that 

 the whole of our fauna entered Ireland in Pliocene times. 



Forbes' theory of an Atlantis is now generally held to be 

 beset with insuperable difficulties, though there is a ver}^ 

 general belief in the former extension of the European con- 

 tinent to the 100 fathom line to the west of our present 

 Atlantic shore. Whatever view may be held as to the abso- 

 lute ages of the three groups of our flora which I have 

 mentioned, the comparative ages assigned to them by Forbes 

 are highly probable. L,et us see how they work with the 

 corresponding groups of animals. It seems verj^ likely 

 that the Pyrenean animals are the oldest members of the 

 British fauna, because the}^ have been driven so far westwards, 

 being almost confined to Ireland, a few occurring in the 

 west of Great Britain. Most of the alpine and northern 

 animals are less characteristically Irish than Scotch, and 

 seem to have entered this country from Scotland. An 

 apparent exception to the first of these statements we have 

 seen in Erebia epiphrori, a southern insect which, not rare in 

 Scotland, is almost extinct in Ireland through which it must 

 have passed northwards ; and to the second in Pelophila borealis, 

 an arctic beetle not rare in Ireland, but apparently extinct in 

 Scotland through which it passed southwards. 



If, as I consider well-nigh certain, the Pyrenean fauna at 

 least must be supposed to have come to us from a time before 

 the Ice Age, we are met with the question : how did the animals 

 (and plants) survive ? It may be that they did not survive in 

 any part of the present Irish area, but in some old land tract 

 to the south or west where the conditions w^ere less severe. 

 But it must be remembered that in the highest north which 

 explorers have reached an abundance of life marks the short 

 summer.^ 



^ Joiirn. of Botany ^ vol. xxxi., 1893, p. 299. 



^ Proc. R.f.A. (3) iii., 1894, p. 479 ; Man. Soc. Zool. France, 1895, pp. 436-474. 



3 See also G. W. Bulman in Nat, Science, vol. iii., p. 261. 



A3 



