Bevieu's — Scharfs Origin of the European Fauna. 425 



are certainly some who do, and among them Mr. Clement Keid, 

 author of the ' British Pliocene Deposits,' who remarks that 

 ' in the Britain of the present day we may study the repeopling 

 of a country over which everything had been exterminated ! ' 

 . . . . The opinions expressed by zoologists, botanists, and 

 geologists are overwhelmingly in favour of the Post-Glacial age 

 of the present British fauna. It is believed, even by most of 

 those who admit that the British Islands were inhabited by a very 

 similar fauna and flora in Pre-Glacial times, that a vast destruction of 

 animal and vegetable life took place during the Pleistocene epoch, 

 and that very few, if any, species survived the change of climate 

 brought about by the Glacial period." " As I have already indi- 

 cated," says Dr. Scharflf, "I do not share these views." The author 

 then proceeds to give his own conclusions on this point. 



Geogi-aphical Conditions prior to the Glacial Period. — " At the com- 

 mencement of the latter half of the Pliocene epoch, or we might 

 say about the time of the deposition of the Red Crag, the Atlantic 

 was closed in the north by a continuous land-connection between 

 Northern Scandinavia, Spitzbergen, Franz Joseph's Land, Northern 

 Greenland, and Arctic North America. The Pacific was likewise 

 separated from the Arctic Ocean by a land-barrier between Alaska 

 and Karatschatka. The Arctic fauna and flora were thus enabled 

 to spread into Northern Europe and North America. England 

 was also connected with France and Ireland, and Scandinavia and 

 Ireland with Scotland. A marine expansion from the White Sea 

 then spread across Northern Russia into the North European 

 plains, and the sea thus formed, which I proposeto call the North 

 European Sea, joined the united basins of the Aralo-Caspian and 

 Black Seas." (p. 445.) 



Movements of the Faunas and Floras. — "The Siberian fauna was, 

 therefore (at that time) unable to enter Europe, while the more 

 southern Central Asiatic fauna continued to migrate into Southern 

 Europe, as in Miocene and early Pliocene times, by a land-connection 

 which joined Asia Minor and Greece. A gradual retreat of the 

 North European Sea to the north opened up a passage in Eastern 

 Europe by which the Siberian fauna poured into Central Russia, 

 Germany, France, and England. There is distinct geological 

 evidence that this vast migration of the Siberian fauna and flora 

 occurred after the deposition of the Lower Continental Boulder-clay. 

 The advance-guard composed of mammals arrived in England during 

 the deposition of the Forest-bed. This marks, therefore, not only 

 the time of the first retreat of the North European Glacial Sea, but 

 also that of the disconnection of England and Ireland, since none 

 of the Siberian mammals entered the latter. 



" Meanwhile the Central and South Asiatic mammals, which, as 

 I mentioned, had rambled into Southern Europe, spread into Northern 

 Africa and Western Europe along the shores of the Mediterranean. 

 Many subsequently invaded Central Europe, and also spread north 

 into Great Britain and Ireland. These and the Arctic mammals 

 mostly retired before the Siberian invaders. Hence the purely 



