54 ZOOLOGY. 



laxly, Ireland has but seven of the fifteen British Bats. Of the two surviv- 

 ing British species of Deer — the Red Deer and the Roebuck — Ireland has 

 only the former, now confined to the protected areas in County Kerry. 

 But the Reindeer formerly inhabited the country, and the remains of the 

 extinct Giant Deer {Cervus giganteiis) occur so abundantly in the marls 

 beneath the Irish peat-bogs that the animal is commonly known as the 

 " Irish Elk," though its remains, as preserved on the Continent, in Great 

 Britain, and in the Isle of Man, show that it must have travelled westward 

 from southern Europe or Western Asia. The only species of Elephant 

 known to have inhabited Ireland in former times is the Mammoth, whose 

 bones have been found in the County Waterford cave deposits. 



Among the Rodents both the Black and Brown Rats occur, and a dark, 

 fine-coated variety of the latter species was described by Thompson as dis- 

 tinct under the name of Miis hibernicus. But Ireland possesses only two 

 of the four British Mice, and not a solitary representative of the Voles. The 

 Irish Hare is not the familiar animal {Lepus euro-pcens) of the British low- 

 lands, but the Varying Hare {L. variabilis^) of the Scottish highlands, which, 

 on the Continent, is confined to northern and Alpine regions. In Ireland 

 this animal — a typical example of the Arctic fauna — occurs both on the 

 hills and in the plain ; owing to the mild climate, it only occasionally assumes 

 the white winter coat so appropriate in those northern and mountain 

 haunts to which (except in Ireland) it is now restricted by the competition 

 of its newer rival. 



The absence of so many British Mammals shows, without doubt, that the 

 land-connections between Ireland and Great Britain must have broken 

 down before the latter country became separated from the Continent. Ire- 

 land is, therefore, the older of the two islands. Dr. Scharff * has recently 

 shown that those British Mammals (" Eastern " or " Siberian " fauna) ab- 

 sent from Ireland migrated from Siberia across the central European plain 

 in Pleistocene times, reaching Great Britain too late to continue their pro- 

 gress farther to the west. It is remarkable that (excepting only the Grizzly 

 Bear) all the living and extinct Mammals of Ireland inhabit, or did inhabit, 

 Scotland. This fact led Professor Leith Adamst to infer that they entered 

 Ireland by a northern land-connection. But Dr. Scharff believes that — 

 except in the case of the Reindeer and the Varying Hare, evidently northern 

 species — the track of all these animals can be traced by their fossil remains 

 westward through southern Europe. He concludes from this that they 

 entered Ireland from the south and passed thence northwards into Scotland. 

 We see, therefore, how the peculiarities of the Irish fauna bear on fascina- 

 ting problems of ancient geography. 



Ireland affords an excellent field for the study of many Birds that are 

 restricted as breeding species to the more remote 

 „. , parts of Great Britain. The Ring Ouzel and the 



Dipper, for example, breed in suitable localities 

 throughout Ireland, while the Raven and the Chough 

 still nest in most of the western counties, the latter bird being often found 

 m numbers along the sea-cliffs. The unpopular Hooded Crow is wide- 

 spread and common, but the Carrion Crow is almost unknown. 



Among birds of prey, the Golden Eagle still lingers as a breeding species 



* R, F. Scharft. " The History of the European Fauna." London, i8gq. 

 t A. L. Adams. "Report on the History of Irish Fossil Mammals." Proc. R.I A. (2), iii., 

 1878. 



