XJI^ 

 ^ n- 



THE FAUNA OF BRITAIN. 



lands. Subsequently, when the improvement of the 

 climate had continued, the Shrews and Voles may 

 well have found their way northward along the com- 

 paratively genial coasts, before the larger beasts of 

 prey could find a sufficient stock of game." 



That the Bear, Wolf, Stag, Horse, Mammoth, and 

 Reindeer lived in Ireland before the Glacial period 

 is considered highly probable by Professor Boyd 

 Dawkins (a, p. 152). 



Only the Butterflies are dealt with in Dr. Buchanan 

 White's clever little essay on distribution. And, 

 as I remarked before, his conclusions are some- 

 what marred by the unwarrantable assumption that 

 our islands at no distant date were totally destitute 

 of all plant-life, and were therefore uninhabitable by 

 animals. But his paper differs in so far from most of 

 the others, that he has made a thorough study of the 

 one group he deals with. In some respects it may serve 

 as a model to future students in its general treatment 

 of the problem he has set himself to work out He 

 adopts the principle, even for butterflies, that though 

 it is possible for them to be blown over from the 

 Continent, they have probably migrated with the rest 

 of our indigenous fauna and flora across the dry bed 

 of the German Ocean. His conclusions are that 

 Britain derived its butterfly fauna from continental 

 Europe in post-glacial times, that the Arctic and 

 Alpine species were the first arrivals, and that one 

 part of the Irish species reached Ireland by way of 

 Scotland, another from the south. He assumes, of 



