ScHARFF — On the Origin of the European Fauna. 437 



geograpMcal distribution of British plants. His yieTT, as expressed 

 in the "Compendium of the Cybele Eritannica " (91, p. 72), is as 

 follows: " As a "whole the flora of this country sufficiently accords 

 with the belief of a former land continuity between England and 

 the Continent." 



^Most geologists maintain in a general way that, in later and post- 

 Tertiary times, the British Islands were connected by land with the 

 Continent ; but the opinion is chiefly derived from the fauna, and we 

 do not, therefore, get any fresh evidence from a diflerent soui'ce. 

 'Few, except Prof. J. Geikie, moreover, express themselves clearly as 

 to their views on the fonner physical geography of Western Europe 

 during these times, ilr. Jukes-Browne, however, gives a more 

 definite, though somewhat guarded, decision on the subject (46, p. 34) : 

 "It is quite possible that England was joined to France by land 

 which united the Tertiary and Cretaceous basin of Hampshire with 

 the northern part of Erance, its southern border being perhaps a 

 range of high chalk downs, which extended south-eastward fi'om the 

 Isle of "Wight, and was continuous with the chalk districts of 

 Normandy. It is conceivable that the Oligo-miocene upheaval had 

 lifted this tract of country to a considerable elevation above the sea, 

 the rise being greatest over the southern, or Isle of "Wight, axis, but 

 the whole country sharing in the uplift. If this were so, the ti'act in 

 question would for-m an isthmus between the eastern and the south- 

 western seas, and may never have been wholly submerged until late 

 Pleistocene time." Speaking of the English Eorest-bed 'SLr. Clement 

 Pieid says (72 «, p. 186): " The large number of ITammals already known 

 from the Eorest-bed seems clearly to point to a connexion with the 

 Continent, and to wide plains over which the animals could roam." 

 Prof, de Lapparent (54, p. 1382) deduces from the similarity of 

 the Pleistocene Mammalia of England, with those of the Continent, 

 the existence of an isthmus connecting these countries, which he 

 thinks cannot have been ruptured until a comparatively recent date. 

 Finally, if everyone were of Prof. J. Geikie's opinion, I would 

 have been spared the writing of this paragraph, for he says (35 3, 

 p. 505). " jSTo one doubts that the flora and fauna of our islands 

 could only have immigrated by a land-passage." But even if none of 

 these naturalists had expressed theii' opinions on the fonner land- 

 coimexion between the British Islands and the Continent, anyone who 

 carefully thinks over the subject must come to the same conclusion. 

 It is difficult enough to imagine how, under the present configuration 

 of Ireland, the mammoth, the wolf, and the bear reached the island. 



