240 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTICES' OF NEW BOOKS. 



European Animals ; their Geological History and Geographical 

 Distribution. By R. F. Scharff, Ph.D., B.Sc, &c. Archi- 

 bald Constable & Co., Ltd. 



This book is a storehouse of facts which take precedence of 

 theory, a welcome innovation to the frequent publication of a 

 theory to which the facts are only subsidiary. The opening 

 sentence of the book is the text throughout : " The geological 

 history of our animals is largely the history of their past wander- 

 ings." The method of treatment is a sectional one. Ireland, 

 Scotland, England and Wales, occupy separate chapters, and 

 others are devoted to different European regions ; while many 

 outline maps show the distribution of a particular animal or 

 plant. This procedure focuses the local information, and sim- 

 plifies the argument, while at the same time it makes the work 

 available as a work of easy reference. And this is the merit of 

 any standard work. To read a book in haste and then put it on 

 the shelf for ever is death and destruction to its writer, however 

 much we may bepraise the derelict. The well-thumbed volume 

 that promotes discussion lives longer than the volume possessing 

 the imprimatur of general acceptance. 



Dr. Scharff is very familiar with the Irish fauna, and he 

 writes : — " Taking into consideration the testimony yielded by 

 the remains contained in the recent English Tertiary and post- 

 Tertiary deposits, I am of opinion that the whole of the existing 

 Irish fauna and flora is of pre-Glacial Age." 



There are no footnotes, an appendix giving a list of works and 

 papers which have been most frequently consulted. There appear 

 to be a few slips in this or the converse. At p. 124 we read of 

 Messrs. Wright and Upham as authors of a little work on Green- 

 land, and on referring to the appendix can only find a reference 

 to Wright and Warren. 



