Distribution and Origin 

 of Life in America 



CHAPTER I 



THE FAUNA OF GREENLAND 



GREENLAND geographically belongs to arctic America 

 rather than to Europe, and, as it no doubt formed part of the 

 land bridge that once connected America and Europe, its past 

 history contains chapters of the greatest interest. Scanty 

 as the fauna and flora of Greenland are, they afford us many 

 a clue as to former changes of land and water which th&t 

 country has undergone. Their study enables us also to trace 

 the origin of the animals and plants of the neighbouring por- 

 tion of continental America, which is one of the objects of 

 the present work. 



Greenland is now too well known to need a long description. 

 Yet few readers realise the vast size of this stern and 

 uninviting country, which covers an area considerably larger 

 than the whole of France and Germany together. Three- 

 quarters, at least, of this area being completely buried 

 under an enormous glacier ice-sheet, or inland ice, only a 

 comparatively narrow belt of partly barren rocky ground is 

 left along the shore on which animal and plant life is possible. 

 The broadest exposed strip of land on the west coast of Green- 

 land is about a hundred miles .wide. Here and ther e two 

 kinds of willows and the dwarf birch together form scrubby 

 low- growing woods, the stems rarely rising more than a few 

 feet from the ground. Thickets of alder, white birch and 

 dwarf juniper likewise occur, while in sheltered nooks the 



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