474 Revieics—ScJiarff's Origin of the European Fauna. 



a variety of C. Canadensis, and identical with C. eustephanus and 

 C. xantJiopygus, by Tcberski ; and there can be no doubt as to the 

 specific identity with C. elaphus of C. Corsicanus and C. barbarus. 



" It seems altogether probable that all these forms are but 

 races or varieties of the red deer (C. elaphus). However, in the 

 shape of the antler, we can separate two groups — one with short 

 and the other with long and powerful ones. The former inhabits 

 Northern Africa, the Mediterranean islands, Ireland, and Western 

 Europe generally, graduating towards the east into the larger form, 

 which occurs in Asia, North America, the Crimea, and in the Cau- 

 casus, but is now practically extinct in other parts of Europe." 

 (p. 483.) 



Fossil Evidence of the Bed Deer. — " I may mention that we have 

 fossil evidence of the great antiquity in Europe of the small race 

 of the red deer. It was found associated in Malta with the 

 pigmy hippopotamus and an extinct elephant, and has been 

 obtained in caves at Gibraltar, in Spain, and in Ireland. All the 

 animals of the southern migration, which I have referred to in 

 the preceding pages, formed part of an exceedingly ancient stream 

 which issued forth from South- Western Europe. As I indicated, 

 they did not all originate there, but the natives of that region 

 were joined by those of Central and Southern Asia, which had 

 wandered to South- Western Europe, across ancient land-connections, 

 by way of Greece, Sicily, and North-West Africa. That the fauna 

 of North-West Africa had come from Europe, and that the latter 

 was not stocked from Africa, has already been maintained by the 

 great palseontologist Riitimeyer and by Bourguignat." 



Advaiice of the Asiatic stream of Southern Migration into Central 

 Europe. — " Owing to the breaking up of old land-connections across 

 the Mediterranean, and to the disappearance of barriers in other 

 places, the Asiatic stream of the southern migration entered Central 

 Europe by a more direct route than before, and was now joined 

 by animals of Central European origin in its northern course. 

 The south-Avestern animals and plants ceased to migrate north, 

 possibly owing to a refrigeration by slow degrees of the climate, 

 and at the present moment many of the members of that early 

 migration, which reached Ireland, have become extinct ; most 

 of the survivors, still holding their ground in gradually decreasing 

 numbers, discontinue to spread. The older members of the 

 southern migration are therefore in Ireland more or less confined 

 to the south-western counties. Not only are they there in a climate 

 more in accordance with their original habitat, but what is of 

 more importance, the struggle for existence is less keen there, as 

 comparatively few of the latter immigrants from Southern and 

 Central Europe have penetrated to that part of Ireland. It must 

 be remembered that these changes went on very gradually, step 

 by step. Though the number of the south-western species that 

 migrated north probably grew less as the more eastern forms 

 increased, there can be no doubt that some continued to advance 

 north even after Ireland was separated from England." (p. 485.) 



