Ixxiv PKOCEEDINGS OF THE 



portion of regions already mentioned, the greater part, as in the case 

 of France, belonging to the extreme end of the great Russo-European 

 tract. Like France, also, they partake, although in a reduced degree, 

 of that Western type which extends upwards from the Ibeiian 

 peninsula. They are, however, completely severed from the Medi- 

 terranean as from the Alpine regions ; their mountain -vegetation, 

 and, as far as I can learn, their mountaia- zoology, is Scandinavian ; 

 and if it shows any connexion with southern ranges, it is rather with 

 the Pyrenees than with the Alps. The chief distinctive character 

 of Britain is derived from her insular position, which acts as a cheek 

 upon the passive immigration of races, and is one cause of the com- 

 parative poverty of her fauna and flora ; the isolation, on the other 

 hand, may not be ancient enough or complete enough for the pro- 

 duction and presei-vation of endemic forms. As far as we know, 

 there is not in phsenogamic botany, nor in any of the orders of ani- 

 mals in which the question has been sufficiently considered, a single 

 endemic British race of a grade high enough to be qualified as a 

 species in the Linnaean sense. How far that may be the case with 

 the lower cryptogams cannot at present be determined ; there is 

 still much difficulty in establishing species upon natural affinities, 

 and (in some Lichens and Fungi for instance) much confusion 

 between phases of individual life and real genera and species remains 

 to be cleared up. The study of our neighbours' faunas and floras 

 is therefore necessary to make us fully acquainted with the animals 

 and plants we have, and useful in showing us what we have not, 

 but should have had were it not for causes which require investi- 

 gation — such, for instance, as plants like Salvia pratensis, ia common 

 European species to be met with in abundance the moment we cross 

 the Channel, but either absent from or confined to single localities 

 in England. 



There is no country, however, in which the native flora and 

 fauna have been so long and so steadily the subject of close investi- 

 gation as our own, nor where they continue to be worked out in 

 detail by so numerous a staff" of observers. To the Floras we possess 

 a valuable addition has been made within the last twelvemonth in 

 J. D. Hooker's ' Students' Flora of the British Isles ' — the best we 

 have for the purposes of the teacher, and in which the careful 

 notation of the general distribution of each species is a great im- 

 provement on our older standard class-books. H. C. AVatson's 

 recently completed ' Compendium of the Cybcle Britannica ' treats 

 of the geographical relations of our plants with that accuracy of 

 detail which characterizes all his works. In zoology, although we 



