290 HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN FAUNA. 



peninsula and there remain, or at once push on west- 

 ward into Southern Italy, Sicily, and Tunis, by means 

 of the old land-connections, and thence into Southern 

 Spain. The Atlantic communicated at that time with 

 the Mediterranean across the valley of the Guadal- 

 quivir ; but that connection ceased to exist towards 

 the end of the Miocene Epoch, when the Oriental 

 migrants were free to ramble through Spain and the 

 whole of the North European plain. I have indicated 

 on a previous occasion (a, p. 484) that the earliest 

 members of the Red Deer migration, which have left 

 their traces in the caves of Malta, and whose descend- 

 ants still live in Corsica, Sardinia, and North Africa, 

 may have found their way to Northern Europe in 

 this manner. Many other Asiatic mammals probably 

 reached the British Islands in a similar way. 



I cannot call to mind any large species of 

 mammal which we might reasonably suppose to 

 have originated in South-western Europe. Even 

 among the smaller ones, few give us any definite 

 clue in this respect. For instance, the present range 

 of the genus Myogale a small Insectivore belonging 

 to the Mole family (Talpidce) teaches us nothing. 

 The two living species show discontinuous distribu- 

 tion, and are almost confined to Europe. Myogale 

 occurs fossil in French miocene deposits, but is 

 unknown beyond the confines of our continent. It is 

 therefore probably of West European origin. The 

 gap between the South Russian M. moschata and the 

 Spanish M.pyrenaica is bridged over in so far as we 



