1896.] CarpENTKR. — Miufrling of the North and South. 67 



There remains to be considered the newer southern fauna 

 which we saw to be so unexpectedly represented round 

 Galway, those animals of Knglish or Germanic type which 

 seem so strangel}' out of place in the west of Ireland. Forbes, 

 as has been said, considered the plants of the British, English, 

 and Germanic types of Watson to form but one great flora ; 

 and though many of our British animals have a range readily 

 referable to one of these three types, others show a gradual 

 transition from Germanic to E^nglish or from English to 

 British. There is much reason therefore for considering 

 these three 't3^pes to be all sections of one great Central 

 European fauna, some of which have attained in the British 

 Isles a wider predominance than others. 



Most of the animals of the British type of distribution, 

 being found all over Ireland, may be presumed to have come 

 in from the east across the valley which now forms St. George's 

 Channel. But this assemblage of animals we are specially 

 considering, of English or Germanic type in Great Britain, 

 are not found in the east of Ireland. It seems a general rule 

 that members of this newer fauna which are confined to the 

 south of Britain are confined to the south or west of Ireland. 

 It should be remembered that Forbes separated, as distinct 

 from the Germanic flora, a small group of plants characteristic 

 of the Chalk districts of south-eastern England, thinking 

 them much older, older indeed than the Northern flora. But 

 even if we compare with these the western Irish animals that 

 we are discussing, we must hold them to be more recent than 

 the Pyrenean group. 



The explanation of the facts, which I now suggest, is 

 that this section of the newer fauna broke through the line of 

 the older, and, in the west of Ireland, was able to take the 

 country of the latter in the rear, and spread from west to east. 

 It will be generally admitted that the anilmas of this fauna 

 would spread more rapidly over plains and along valleys than 

 among hills. And the line of least resistance in our area was 

 the wide-spreading valley which must at some time have led 

 westward along the present area of the English Channel and 

 to the south of Ireland. Down this valley, I suggest that 

 this migration passed, and arrived at the south-west corner of 



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