MAMMALS IN GENERAL 15 



have been East Anglia, which, no doubt, was connected then 

 with Belgium and Holland. 



Out of the one hundred and thirteen species known to have 

 inhabited the British Islands from the close of the Pliocene 

 period to the present day, no less than thirty-five are restricted 

 to England and Wales, Scotland being credited with sixty-seven, 

 and Ireland with only fifty. Moreover, in Scotland and Ireland 

 (notably in Ireland) no mammalian remains have been found of 

 an earlier date than the Pleistocene period ^ ; whereas in England 

 mammalian remains date from the Secondary Epoch and are found 

 representing all the many stages of the Tertiary. 



Of the aforesaid hundred and thirteen species of mammals 

 only seventy-two are now existing (with any degree of pro- 

 bability) in the British Islands or adjacent seas ; and of these 

 at least fifteen species (seals, whales, and bats) are so scarce or 

 of such doubtful occurrence as to be scarcely worth enumerating 

 in the list of British mammals." Forty-one species^ out of the 

 hundred and thirteen^ have become extinct between the remote 

 days of palaeolithic man and the eighteenth century of this era. 

 But of these forty-one, twelve are completely extinct^ while twenty- 

 nine are still found living (as scarcely differing species) somewhere 

 in Europe, Asia, Africa, or North America. These are the 

 narwhal^ the lesser killer whale^ the sperm whale^ the southern 

 right whale J the hunting-dog {Lycaon\ the wolf^ the brown bear, 

 the panda, the glutton^ the striped and spotted hyanas, the lion^ 

 leopard^ lynx, and Egyptian wild cat, the bearded seal, the walrus^ 

 the pika {Lagomys), the beaver, the suslik, the lemming and banded 

 lemming, the hippopotamus, wild boar^ elk, reindeer^ saiga antelope, 

 musk-ox, and European bison. Some of these creatures, therefore, 

 might legitimately be reintroduced. 



Note. — The following table of geological epochs and periods 

 referred to throughout this work in connection with the past 

 history of British mammals may be of use to unlearned readers, 



^ This, no doubt, is a pure accident of geological formations. 

 2 So that the total number of species existing within British limits at the 

 present day, is, for all practical purposes, fifty-seven. 



