4 INFLUENCE OF CLIMATIC AND GEOLOGICAL CHANGES 



Glacial Age the greater part of the British Isles was under 

 perennial snow ; but life was not entirely extirpated, there was a 

 survival of some portion of it. It is inconceivable that the whole 

 of the south of England was under an ice-cap, but that there was 

 an area left capable of supporting a considerable fauna and flora. 

 Dr. March, in his exceedingly interesting paper, read before the 

 Members of the Club last year, adduced proofs which he 

 considered sufficient evidence that Portisham and other parts of 

 the south of England had been glaciated. Mr. Clement Reid 

 shows that Ireland was entirely so during the Glacial Age. In a 

 paper read before the Members of the Geological Society in 

 1850 Mr. R. A. C. Austen proposed to reduce the existing fauna 

 and flora to two periods of origin, one of which came in after the. 

 deposition of the Glacial Drift. The other was of a local character 

 in districts insulated by the Pleistocene Sea, and whose floras have 

 outlived all subsequent changes. This is equally opposed to 

 Mr. Clement Reid's views. 



A Russian Naturalist, M. Bogdanow, suggests that there were 

 two distinct migrations of northern animals to Central Europe, 

 from the north and the east, and that the Reindeer, t\\e Arctic Hare, 

 the Willoiv Grouse, &c., whose remains have been found in the 

 Pyrenees, are distinct from the. Siberian element, which in- 

 vaded Europe during the Glacial Age. He maintained that the 

 former had quite a distinct origin, and came from Scandinavia. 

 Our friend and distinguished geologist, Professor Boyd Dawkins, 

 gives a chart in his " Early Man in Britain " representing the 

 geography of Europe during the Pleistocene Age, indicating the 

 extent of an eastern and a southern migration during that period. 

 At the close of the Pliocene Age a very close connection with 

 Asia was caused by an elevation of land, and the British Isles 

 became the feeding-grounds of the animals whose remains are 

 found in the Forest-bed of the Eastern Counties and the Dogger 

 Bank, off Yarmouth. He considered that the migration of the 

 southern animals was contemporary with the westward migration 

 of the eastern group. Upon arriving in Europe the southern 

 forms went north in the summer, as did the eastern. The African 



