PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. 6 1 



a connection, if it existed, must have broken down 

 in Pliocene times. Professor Judd, however, has ex- 

 pressed his belief (p. 1008) that it still existed until 

 after the appearance of man in Northern Europe, and 

 that our forefathers might have been able to walk 

 dry foot from Scotland to Norway. 



I shall also show on distributional evidence, in the 

 fourth chapter, that until recent geological times 

 Scandinavia was continued northward, by way of 

 Bear Island, with Spitsbergen and probably Franz 

 Josef Land, which islands again were joined with 

 North Greenland and Arctic North America, and 

 that the polar fauna and flora were able to spread on 

 this land-connection to both America and Europe. 



That Gibraltar was connected with Morocco, and 

 Sicily with Southern Italy and Greece on the one 

 hand, and with Tunis on the other, is more generally 

 recognised; whilst Professor Suess has shown (vol. i., 

 p. 442), on purely geological grounds, that the 

 Egean Sea was dry land up till quite recently 

 certainly, he thinks, till after the appearance of man. 

 This supposition enables us to understand, as will be 

 more fully discussed in the sixth chapter, how the 

 Oriental fauna entered Europe. Such minor zoo- 

 geographical problems as the occurrence of the Wild 

 Goat of Asia Minor {Capra cegagtus) on the islands of 

 Crete and on some of the Cyclades now almost 

 explain themselves. The Sea of Marmora is prob- 

 ably a modern formation, so that Asia Minor ex- 

 tended not long ago beyond the Turkish capital, but 



