46 HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN FAUNA. 



recent wild pigs can be clearly distinguished (b, p. 298). 

 One of these, viz., Sus vittatus^ he thinks, is trace- 

 able in slight modifications frcm Sardinia to New 

 Guinea and from Japan to South Africa. The centre 

 of distribution of this species lies in Southern Asia. 

 Of the three remaining species, two, viz., Sus ver- 

 rucosus and *S. barbarus, are entirely confined to the 

 great islands which form part of the Malay Archi- 

 pelago. Finally, Sus scrofa, our Central European 

 wild Boar, is so closely related to 5. vittatus that the 

 Sardinian Boar might be looked upon as a variety of 

 either the one or the other. At any rate, Dr. Major 

 recognises clearly in Sus vittatiis the representative 

 of the ancestral stock of which Sus scrofa is a some- 

 what modified offshoot. 



The fauna of Europe consists, as I have mentioned, 

 to a large extent of immigrants from the neighbouring 

 continents. This is especially noticeable among the 

 higher animals. When we come to the lower, such as 

 the amphibia, we find a larger percentage, and among 

 the land mollusca the great majority, to be of Euro- 

 pean origin. The foreigners are, as we learned, called 

 Orientals, Siberians, and Arctics. For the sake of 

 convenience, only two of the great European centres 

 of origin have a chapter devoted to themselves, 

 namely, the Alpine and the Lusitanian centres. 

 There is another, - however, of almost equal im- 

 portance which lies in the east. 



In the British Islands there is only an exceedingly 

 small and insignificant group of species which are 



