158 MAMMALS. 



would only remind the reader that I gave reasons for holding that Greenland was then united to 

 Britain by Iceland, and the Faroe and Shetland Islands, and the continent by Denmark, and thence 

 southwards. It is plain that when Europe began to assume its present appearance the great northern 

 rivers which now fall into the Baltic Sea and German Ocean must have had an outlet ; and the ine- 

 qualities of the bottom of the sea show that this must have been by a continuation of the Baltic along 

 1 he western shore of Norway. When wo reach the north of Norway it was at first a matter of doubt 

 to me whether the then Baltic most probably emptied itself into the Arctic Ocean between Green- 

 land and Spitsbergen, or by rounding the North Cape and passing between Nova Zembla and Spitz- 

 bergen. At that time I did not know of the identity of the Spitzbergen and Greenland Reindeer, 

 I only knew that Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Scandinavia, had all one flora, wliich proved 

 nothing, but now we have circumstances in whicli Greenland and Spitzbergen agree, and in which 

 they differ from Scandinavia, and that turns the scale in favour of the outlet being to the east 

 of Spitzbergen. In support of the connexion of Spitzbergen with other lands — not specially to 

 Greenland, but gcnerallj' — we have the fact mentioned by Mr. Lament that the sea for a con- 

 siderable distance round Spitzbergen is very shallow, about twelve to twenty fathoms being the 

 ordinary depth in which the walrus were hunted. 



6. The fact of Greenland possessing a European flora j^rovcs that its connexion with 

 Britain and Denmark continued sufficiently long after the close of the glacial epoch to allow plants 

 to spread from Britain to it. 



7. The dispersal or spread of plants is more rajiid than that of animals, at all events it must 

 always precede that of animals. Until plants have established themselves there is nothing on which 

 hoibivorous animals could feed ; and until herbivorous animals come there is nothing for carnivorous 

 animals to feed on. It is quite in rule, therefore, that Europe, and Greenland as a part of it, must 

 have received its flora before its fauna. 



8. The character of the flora of Greenland and Spitzbergen being in the main EurojDean, it 

 follows that the connecting stretch of dry land between Europe and Greenland was still above water 

 when the plants from the south colonized Greenland. 



0. The character of the fauna is not European. It is circumpolar, or, more proiDerly speaking, 

 I'olar North American. There is the abo-^e modified connexion with the Reindeer. It has been 

 ascertained that American examples of the Polar Hare (Lepus glacialis) can be distinguished 

 from Scandinavian and Siberian examples by differences in the relative ^proportions of some of 

 the parts, as of the tarsus ; and on examination of specimens from Greenland they have been found 

 to correspond with the American proportions, rather than with the Old-world dimensions. An 

 American Lemming, Myodus Hudsonius, has been taken in Greenland, and the other animals 

 found in Greenland, also occur in America. More particular examination of individuals from 

 Greenland of every species, found both in the Old World and the New, is very desirable ; but 

 with the information which we have, we must take the facts as jjreponderating in favour of a 

 connexion with America, so far as regards the mammals. Moreover, as already said, the birds are 

 American ; and although birds can fly where plants and terrestrial mammals cannot, we know that 

 even migratorial birds discern and keep their own boundaries. 



10. I therefore infer that the connecting land between Greenland and Britain sunk l)efore any 

 mammal had readied the former ; and that the break first took place between Iceland and the Faroe 

 Islands. The latter seem to have continued long enough united to Britain to allow its mammals to 

 reach them. Shetland and tliey both jsossess a British mammalian fauna on a reduced scale, as the 



