ScHARFF — On the Origin of the European Fauna. 473 



more closely related to the typical European tlian to the Irish stoat, 

 so that any near relationship between the African or the Asiatic forms 

 and the Irish is excluded. 



Rangifer tarandus. — Two distinct races of the reindeer, viz. the 

 large "Woodland and the smaller Barren-ground caribou, have long been 

 distinguished in North America. In the latter the antlers are more 

 rounded and slender than in the other race. 



If we turn to the Old World we find that two very similar races 

 occur, but whilst both inhabit Europe, one only, viz. tlie Woodland 

 form, lives in Asia, and there is no record that the other existed there. 

 This startling fact suggests that the Barren-ground caribou has either 

 come to Europe from America by a different route from that of the 

 other race, or that it has originated in the Polar regions, and thence 

 spread to America and to Europe from its original home. But what- 

 ever view we adopt, the present geographical conditions could not have 

 prevailed when these migrations took place, and an extensive land 

 connexion between IS^orthem Europe and the Polar regions must then 

 have existed. That such a connexion did actually exist, is proved 

 by the occurrence of the reindeer in Greenland, Melville and Disco 

 Islands, and Spitsbergen. However, if we had not this proof, the 

 mere knowledge of the distribution of the fossil remains of the rein- 

 deer in Europe would render it highly probable. In Ireland alone of 

 all the countries in the Old World do we find only the remains of the 

 Barren-ground reindeer. In Great Britain the two forms occur mixed. 

 The Scandinavian reindeer is also the Barren-ground form, but the 

 Lapland race is intermediate between the two. On the Continent the 

 Barren-ground reindeer is entirely confined to Western Europe, and 

 it seems to occur there in older deposits, as a rule, than the other 

 race. 



All this clearly points to a double migration of the reindeer to 

 Europe — an older one of the Barren-ground race from the north, and a 

 more recent one of the Woodland race from the east. The known 

 facts of the present and past distribution of the two races perfectly 

 agree with this view. The Barren-ground reindeer occurs in Green- 

 land and Spitsbergen ; then, again, as we have seen, in Scandinavia. 

 It migrated along an old land-connexion to Scandinavia at a time 

 when that peninsula formed not a part of the Continent of Europe, 

 but an elongated isthmus which stretched south from Spitsbergen, 

 which latter again was joined to Greenland. The reindeer then 

 invaded Scotland and Ireland (see map, p. 461), and crossed over 

 into France, where it penetrated as far as the Pyrenees. It is, as 



