MIGRATION IN THE BRITISH I STANDS. 261 



Channel, and parts of the Bay of Biscay formed one 

 land mass connecting with Scandinavia by way of 

 the Shetlands, and extending south-west round the 

 south of Ireland to the south-west of France. 

 Migrants then reached this portion of Europe 

 without having any sea-flight at all ; it was simply 

 an overland journey to the mild coast regions of 

 continental land — the vast bulging west peninsula 

 of Europe. But great submergence has taken 

 place ; the North Sea, the English Channel, the 

 Irish Sea have been formed, and great areas of land 

 have sunk along the Atlantic sea-board, leaving 

 matters as we now see them. The stream of 

 Migration, however, continued — the custom of 

 visiting these mild western regions was too deeply 

 rooted a custom to be relinquished ; and not even 

 the widening area of gradually accumulating sea 

 has succeeded in stamping it out. In those far-off 

 days the difference of climate was evidently even 

 more acute than it is now, as is proved not only by 

 geological evidence, but by the still surv-iving relics 

 of a flora in the south of England and Ireland that 

 belongs decidedly to Italy and the South, rather than 

 to Scandinavia ! We have seen in earlier portions 

 of this work how birds still continue to follow 

 submerged routes; across that ancient Lemuria, 

 for instance, now lying beneath Indian Ocean 

 waves ; we have in this East to West stream of 

 Migration another instance, although on a smaller 

 scale, and consequently followed by many more 

 species than travel by that submerged route 



