Bihliograpldcal Notice. 457 



l^hus also we get rid of every reason tor ])laeiiig Iceland in 

 the map* as belonging at present to the circle of distribution 

 of the lemmings, and likewise for placing it among the 

 countries which have a western or American fauna of ter- 

 restrial mammals t; for, provided the Iceland mouse is to be 

 regarded as a terrestrial mannnal of the island before its 

 peopling, there cannot be the least shadow of doubt that, like 

 the species of IMix and the other land and freshwater mol- 

 lusca, with the whole of the land flora, it points towards Scan- 

 dinavia and Lapland, and removes the island from Greenland 

 and North America. It was also in o])position to this eastern 

 type in the existing flora and faima of Iceland that the dis- 

 t nctly expressed ivesfeni or American type which 1 found 

 in the Icelandic Tertiary flora of the Surturbrauds had al- 

 ready struck me as so remarkable. 



But these discussions lead in the end to a pressing request 

 to the Icelanders that they will send to the Zoological j\Iii- 

 seum from different districts of that great island the mice 

 living in the open country and far from human habitations, 

 especially preserved in spirits ; for, although there is no par- 

 ticular reason for supposing that there would be among them 

 forms which we do not already know, still several important 

 scientific questions attach to this mouse : — first and chiefly 

 whether the definite peculiarities upon which it has been 

 thought that it might be set up as a peculiar species, or a 

 peculiar Icelandic variety of another allied mouse, are always 

 present ; and next, whether, if this be the case, these pecu- 

 liarities can be supposed to have been developed in Iceland, 

 or whether they also occur elsewhere and may have come 

 thence with the mice to Iceland. 



BIBLIOGllAPHICAL NOTICE. 



Preglaciul Man, and Geohijkal Chronolociy. By J. Scorr Moore. 

 8vo, pp. 120. Dublin and London, 18G8. 



WuEX the Hebrew sago gave expression in his native language to a 

 view of creation and cosmogony according to the wisdom of the 

 Egyptians, he began liis divine mission ])y witlidrawing his people 

 from the superstitious of ignorance and fear, and fixing tlieir atten- 

 tion on the one omnipotent and onnuscient Creator. What remains 



* See map Ixxxv., p. 200, of Murray's work. 



t See Murray's map ci., p. ^508. If the synonymy given by Murray be 

 correct, and Mijodes yrauhindicus be really identical witb one of Palliis's 

 species from Sibena, this will prove that tbis leuuniiig's occurrence in 

 Iceland would just as well indicate an easteru as a western fauna for 

 that island. 



