B. BROWN ON THE MAMMALS OF GREENLAND. 11 



division proper, limiting it by the arbitrary divisions of geography, 

 divisions which, though necessary enough for the astronomical 

 description of the earth, yet serve no purpose to the physical 

 geographer in tracing the distribution of plants and animals over it. 

 This division is comprehended under my circumpolar range, which 

 ends on the seas adjoining Greenland about the head of Baffin's 

 Bay. I have given its general limits there, as many species do not 

 go beyond that barrier, and others do not come south of it. I am 

 well aware that this may appear a somewhat loose \vay of expressing 

 the limits of regions ; but at the same time the species the range 

 of which these divisions are made to express are most wonderfully 

 careless of the degrees, minutes, and seconds which the geographer 

 may erect as their limits, and we can therefore only express their 

 divisional boundaries in an equally elastic manner. I trust, how- 

 ever, that they are sufficiently intelligible. 



(c) To give the southern range of certain species of Seals and 

 Cetacea, T have erected a division for temperate Europe, compre- 

 hending the British and Scandinavian seas ; and in the range of 

 the same latitudes on the shores of the British provinces and the 

 United States of America a (^) temperate American division. I 

 have not, as in the circumarctic range, erected a division for 

 temperate Asia, as I do not think there is a single species of Seal 

 or Cetacea, found in the seas (and certainly no Mammals on the 

 land) of temperate Asia, found in the corresponding seas of 

 Europe and America, though, as several of the species are common 

 to the circumarctic and circumpolar divisions of all three, some 

 may yet be found. In preparing this table I have endeavoured to 

 give the natural range of the species, and have not entered a 

 species in any division because it has been, as an evident straggler, 

 seen within that division. For instance, Balcena mysticetus, Be- 

 luga catodon, Monodon monoceros, and Trichechus rosmarus have 

 all of them more than once found their way to the British seas, 

 yet no zoo-geographer would ever think of representing the Right 

 Whale, the White Whale, the Narwhal, or the Walrus as regular 

 members of the British fauna. On the other hand, I need scarcely 

 say that when I put an animal into any division I do not thereby 

 say that it is limited to that division (for, as shown on the table, 

 many extend through several of these divisions), nor that they are 

 found over all that division or series of divisions or regions. I 

 have already explained that the range of each is limited according 

 to its habitat and habits. 



I have made these explanations because, as all rules are liable to 

 exceptions, so are systems and systematic divisions. Nature abhors 

 being confined between paiallel lines. 



Under the division of " Nature of its Distribution in Greenland " 

 I have divided them into (a) Introduced species, (jS) Migratory 

 species, and (7) Species indigenous all the year round. 



(a) In Fabricius's day the following Mammals had been intro- 

 duced into the country, but chiefly into South Greenland : — Ca7iis 

 familiaris (European breeds), Felis domestica, Ovis aries, Capra 

 hircus, Bos taurus, Sus scrofa, Mus decumanus, and Mus musculus. 

 All of these species are yet at times living in the country, but none 



