Bibliographical Notice. 457 



Thus also we get rid of every reason for placing Iceland in 

 the map* as belonging at present to the circle of distribution 

 of the lemmings, and likewise for placing it among the 

 countries which have a western or American fauna of ter- 

 restrial mammals t ; for, provided the Iceland mouse is to be 

 regarded as a terrestrial mammal of the island before its 

 peopling, there cannot be the least shadow of doubt that, like 

 the species of Helix and the other land and freshwater mol- 

 lusca, with the whole of the land flora, it points towards Scan- 

 dinavia and Lapland, and removes the island from Greenland 

 and North America. It was also in opposition to this eastern 

 type in the existing flora and fauna of Iceland that the dis- 

 tinctly expressed loestern or American type which I found 

 in the Icelandic Tertiary flora of the Surturbrands had al- 

 ready struck me as so remarkable. 



But these discussions lead in the end to a pressing request 

 to the Icelanders that they will send to the Zoological Mu- 

 seum from different districts of that great island the mice 

 living in the open country and far from human habitations, 

 especially preserved in spirits ; for, although there is no par- 

 ticular reason for supposing that there would be among them 

 forms which we do not already know, still several important 

 scientific cruestions attach to this mouse : — first and chiefly 

 whether the definite peculiarities upon which it has been 

 thought that it might be set up as a peculiar species, or a 

 peculiar Icelandic variety of another allied mouse, are always 

 present ; and next, whether, if this be the case, these pecu- 

 liarities can be supposed to have been developed in Iceland, 

 or whether they also occur elsewhere and may have come 

 thence with the mice to Iceland. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 



Preglacial Man, and Geological Chronology. By J. Scott Moore. 

 8vo, pp. 120. Dublin and London, 18G8. 



Wuex the Hebrew sage gave expression in his native language to a 

 view of creation and cosmogony according to the wisdom of tbe 

 Egyptians, he began his divine mission by withdrawing his people 

 from the superstitions of ignorance and fear, and fixing their atten- 

 tion on the one omnipotent and omniscient Creator. What remains 



* See map lxxxv., p. 260, of Murray's work. 



t See Murray's map ci., p. 308. If the synonymy given by Murray be 

 correct, and Myodes granlandicus be really identical with one of Pallas's 

 species from Siberia, this will prove that this lemming's occurrence in 

 Iceland would just as well indicate an eastern as a western fauna for 

 that island. 



