300 On the Glaciers and Climate of Iceland. 



is protected on peaceful islands with great favour, especially 

 at the breeding season, is the most important bird of the 

 coasts, and its utility is universally knovv^n. 



It is not our object in these pages to elucidate isolated par- 

 ticulars selected from the wide range of natural history, but 

 to view the general features of the country at large, from a 

 point affording an extensive prospect; and we, therefore, do 

 not wish to fatigue our readers by recounting the names of 

 genera and species. It will not, however, appear out of place 

 for us to direct attention to the fact, that at least the higher 

 kinds of animals in Iceland have become natives of the 

 country only by migration or colonization. They do not be- 

 long to the soil on which they now live, in the same sense as 

 do many peculiarly-formed animals which are found on islands 

 in the southern seas. Such animtils as by nature are un- 

 suited to migrate aci-oss the sea are, therefore, entirely want- 

 ing in Iceland ; or else their translation to this remote deso- 

 late island of the north, is due to some particularly favour- 

 able circumstances. Whether of the lower kinds of animals, 

 — the insect tribes, namely, — species really peculiar to the 

 island occm% is certainly not yet fully determined. So far as 

 we are able to judge, however, such species appear not to 

 occur. That reptiles should be altogether wanting, and that 

 birds, on the other hand, should be present in great numbers, 

 need not appear astonishing. Of land mammalia, two species 

 alone have been introduced by other agency than that of 

 men, — by the agency, namely, of floating ice. All others 

 which are now found on the island, — the Sheep, the Horse, 

 the Pig, the Ox, the Dog, kc, — form merely an accompani- 

 ment of the Human Race ; and they were introduced, for the 

 first time, in the course of the last century. Just as the 

 colder zones of our earth are not so well suited as others for 

 the development of living beings ; so, at the time wdien 

 Iceland began gradually to rise out of the sea, those favour- 

 able conditions in nature, according to which more highly- 

 organised animals might come into existence in a way different 

 from that of ordinary generation, appear to have been past. 



In a complete sketch of the physical geography of a country, 



