!?♦ BROWN ON THE MAMMALS OF GllEENLAND. 13 



coast, so far as we know, being, with this exception, also common 

 to the west. The east coast has, however, been very Uttle ex- 

 plored, and no doubt something remains to be added to our know- 

 ledge of the range of species on that coast. 



On a comparison of the Greenland fauna with that of other 

 portions of the arctic regions, we can see no reason for looking 

 upon it, in common with the flora and the avi- and ichthy-faunas, 

 as other than essentially Arctic-European, all of the species of 

 Mammalia, with the exception of Ovibos moschatus, being found 

 in either Spitzbergen or Nova Zembla, while many of the Arctic- 

 American species are not found in Greenland. The only true 

 American mammal found in Greenland is the Musk-ox, which 

 might have crossed from the western shores of Smith's Sound 

 (where Eskimo tradition describes it as once abundant) on the ice 

 to the eastern shore, where alone in West Greenland it seems to 

 be now found, the great glaciers and ice-floes about Melville Bay 

 seeming to act as a barrier to the southern and northern migra- 

 tions of the animals on either side of them, and of Man equally 

 with the lower animals. 



Looking at the fauna of Spitzbergen,* if we take exception to 

 the very dubious omission which Malmgren has made, we find that 

 there is no species of mammal found in these islands not found 

 in Greenland; and the same is true of the mammals of Nova 

 Zembla, if we take Von Baer's list f as representing the present 

 state of our knowledge, though published more than thirty years 

 ago. Tn this the exception is a doubtful one ('*a little white 

 animal, species uncertain"), but probably an Ermine. I there- 

 fore think that we are justified in looking upon the mammalian 

 fauna of Greenland as Arctic- European, and not Arc tic- American, 

 though I am aware that opposite views are entertained by 

 naturalists of high eminence. 



The mammalian fauna of Iceland has no connexion with that 

 of Greenland, that island possessing only a single species of Mam- 

 mal indigenous to it {Mus sylvaticus) ; all others have been intro- 

 duced by man, or, like the Ursus maritimus and Vulpes lagopus, 

 have drifted from Greenland on ice-floes. 



My friend Mr Andrew Murray J seems to take exception to the 

 Mouse which is said to be found in Iceland, and regarding which 

 wonderful tales are told ;§ and, contrary to the opinion of Povel- 

 sen, who considers it Mus sylvaticus, L., and of the intelligent 

 Icelanders, who, as represented by Sir W. J. Hooker, do not 

 believe in its existence, thinks that it is Myodes torquatus {Imd- 

 sonius, ¥oviit,=^gr(Enlandicus, Tr.). If such is the case, it might 

 have "been brought over on ice from the east coast of Greenland ; 

 but the probability is, according to Steenstrup, who has carefully 



* Malmgren, loc. cit. ; Scoresby, "Arctic Regions ;" Phipps's " Voyage ;" 

 Parry's " Attempt ;" Laing's " Voyage to Spitzbergen," &c.., &c. ... 



t K. E. von Eaer, Wiegmann's Archiv fur Naturgeschichte (1839), pt. vii. 

 (Jicle Murray, " Geogr. Distrib. Alara-m.," p. 3G;5).- 



X Geographical Distribution .of Mammals (1 86G), p. 207. 



§ Pennant, " Arctic Zoology," Introduction, p. Ixx. ; Ilookci-'s " Tour in 

 Iceland," i. pp. 51, 52. , ,.*, 



