490 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
is so strongly represented in the Feroes. The presence of this 
element lends considerable weight to the theory of a postglacial 
land connection, which perhaps existed much longer than we have 
hitherto believed, judging from the other data” (p. 628). 
Several years before the above conclusions of Ostenfeld and 
Dahlstedt were published Professor N. Wille, in a paper on the 
fresh-water alge of the Fzrdes and on the modes of dispersal of 
these alge in general (Botaniska Notiser, 1897) argued for their 
dispersal over the open sea chiefly by the aid of wind and, especially, 
migratory birds. F. Borgesen who worked up the fresh-water 
algze for the Botany of the Feeroes (pt. 1, 1901, p. 202) quite agrees 
“with Wille in thinking that the flights of birds which yearly take 
up their abode in the Feroes, or pass the islands on their way north- 
wards could’ very easily have conveyed to the islands the fresh- 
water algz-flora—and perhaps’ the whole of the flora—which is 
found there” (p. 202). In this conclusion he is fully sustained by 
Professor Eug. Warming who in the final chapter, “the History of 
the Flora of the Feerdes ” (Bot. Feroes, 11, 1903, pp. 660-681) says: 
“T regard a postglacial land connection very improbable, and not 
necessary for the immigration of the Flora, which may be assumed 
to have immigrated across the sea” (p. 664). He admits, how- 
ever, that “it is somewhat difficult to find evidence against the 
existence of a land connection, but it appears that one may be 
obtained from the fauna of the Ferées. It contained originally no 
wild terrestrial mammals, neither foxes, hares, moles, nor mice” 
(p. 670). He also finds unquestionable evidence in the flora, viz., 
the presence of the many temperate European or Atlantic species 
on account of the severe climatic conditions necessarily resulting 
from a land connection, although he apparently considers this ob- 
jection valid only “ were the bridge to be continued uninterruptedly 
to Greenland” (p. 671). 
The belief in a postglacial land connection between the Fzroes and 
Scotland has been particularly strong in the latter country and ap- 
parently, Warming’s arguments have not had any great effect there 
(see the review of his article in the Scottish Geographical Magazine, 
xx, February, 1904, p. 98). 
The net result of this discussion to us is a confirmation of our 
previous conviction that plants, as a rule, do not furnish an infallible 
* Italicized here. 
*It is well to recall that Professor Wille has since apparently changed his 
opinion about the land bridge (see antea, p. 486). 
