424 Reviews — Scharff's Origin of the European Fauna. 



" These few instances will suffice to show that it is by no means 

 so easy as it is generally supposed, to establish an animal in an area 

 which it was previously not known to inhabit, and that really 

 only a very small percentage of the Irish fauna can be due to au 

 occasional means of dispersal." (p. 436.) 



On the former Land-connection between the British, Isles and the 

 Continent. — After citing numerous authors on the former land- 

 connection between the British Islands and the Continent, the 

 author remarks : — "It is difficult enough to imagine how, under the 

 present configuration of Ireland, the mammoth, the wolf, and the 

 bear reached the island. But when we come to the less conspicuous 

 Invertebrates, we are confronted with cases which give us even 

 less chance of escaping from the inevitable assumption of a land- 

 connection with the Continent. How are we, for instance, to 

 suppose that earth-worms reached Ireland, or Testacella, a slug- 

 like mollusc, which spends its entire existence under ground, or 

 Platyarthrus Hoffmanseggii, a blind wood-louse, which also lives 

 below the surface of the soil, in the nests of ants, unless by slow 

 migration on land?" (p. 438.) 



Having decided that the bulk of the Irish fauna migrated to 

 Ireland on land, the author proceeds to consider what was the 

 nature of that land-connection, and by means of a diagram he shows 

 that the old land-surface of the British Isles embraced the entire 

 extent of the coast platform to the 100-fathom line from the 

 Shetlands, Orkneys, and the Western Isles to the coast of France 

 south of Belle Isle. 



The Lusitanian Flora. — Dr. Scharff points out that the Lusitanian 

 flora and fauna are not peculiar to Ireland. " Fragments of it occur 

 undoubtedly in the south-west of England, in the Channel Islands, 

 and along the west coast of France. That flora migrated, therefore, 

 along the ancient sea-border from the south, across the south-west 

 of England, or the land that lay beyond it." (p. 440.) 



The Northern Immigration of Plants and Animals. — " The northern 

 animals and plants undoubtedly came across from Scotland, and iu 

 the county of Londonderry, which pai't of modern Ireland they first 

 touched, they still are more common than in any other portion of the 



country. But they did not originate in Scotland It was 



from Scandinavia that our northern animals and plants came. Many 

 of them, possibly, originated there, but the home of others lies, no 

 doubt, far beyond even the confines of Scandinavia in the Arctic 

 regions. Thus Ireland had, as we have seen, two land-connections 

 with the Continent of Europe — one by way of the south of Eng- 

 land to France, and the other by way of Scotland to Scandinavia." 



Puffed of the Glacial Period on the Pre-existing Fauna and Flora. — 

 After quoting the views of extreme glacialists who hold that in 

 the Glacial period the cold was so intense that all life was extermi- 

 nated, the author adds — "The evidence as to the existence, however, 

 of a fauna in Southern England, at any rate during the Glacial 

 Period, is so overwhelming, that I can hardly believe that many 

 naturalists will accept Professor Geikie's views. Nevertheless, there 



