1898.] on a Yorkshire Moor, 639 



and tilled. During the long attack of man npon wild nature many 

 quadrupeds, a few birds, some insects and some plants are known to 

 have perished altogether. Others have probably disappeared with- 

 out notice Certain large and formidable quadrupeds, though they 

 still survive, are no longer found in Europe, but only in the deserts 

 of the south or the unpeopled northern wastes. Thus the lion, which 

 within the historic period ranged over Greece and Syria, and the 

 grizzly bear, which was once an inhabitant of Yorkshire, have dis- 

 appeared from every part of Europe. Tillage and fencing have 

 checked the seasonal migrations of the reindeer and the lemming. 

 Useful animals have been imported, chiefly from the south or from 

 Asia. Useful plants have been introduced from ancient centres of 

 civilisation, and common farm weeds have managed to come in along 

 with them. Many species of both kinds are southern, many eastern, 

 none are Arctic. In our day the cultivated lands of Europe are 

 largely occupied by southern or eastern forms, and the wastes appear 

 by contrast with the imported population more Arctic than they really 

 are. Even the wastes are shrinking visibly. The fens are nearly 

 gone, and we shall soon have only a few scattered moors left to show 

 what sort of vegetation covered a great part of Europe in the days of 

 choked rivers and unfenced laud. The moors themselves cannot 

 resist the determined attack of civilised man. Thousands of acres 

 which used to grow heather are now pastures or meadows. 



What we call the Arctic fauna and flora of to-day is apparently 

 only the remnant of an assemblage of species varying in hardinesSj 

 which once extended from tlie Arctic circle almost to the Mediter- 

 ranean. If climate and soil alone entered into tbe question, it is likely 

 that the so-called Arctic fauna and flora miglit still maintain itself 

 in many parts of Central Europe. This Arctic (or ancient European) 

 flora includes many plants which are capable of withstanding extreme 

 physical conditions. Some thrive both on peat and on sand, in bogs 

 and on loose gravel. They may range from sea level to a height of 

 several thousand feet. They can endure a summer glare which 

 blisters the skin, and also the sharpest cold known npon this planet. 

 Some can subsist on soil which contains no ordinary ingredient of 

 plant food in appreciable quantity. Such plants survive in particular 

 places, even in Britain, less because of peculiarly appropriate sur- 

 roundings, or of anything which the microscope reveals, than because 

 they can live where other plants perish. Ling, crowberry and the 

 rest are like the Eskimo, who dw^ell in the far north, not because 

 they choose cold and hunger and gloom, but because there only can 

 they escape the competition of more gifted races. The last defences 

 of the old flora are now being broken down ; it is slowly giving way 

 to the social grasses, the weeds of commerce, and the broad-leaved 

 herbs of the meadow, pasture and hedge-row. The scale has been 

 turned, as I think, not so much by climatic or geographical changes, 

 as by the acts of man. 



Every lover of the moors would be glad to know that they bid 



