No. 410.] THE EUROPEAN FAUNA. 89 
of the boulder clay as opposed to its character as bottom 
moraine. Under such climatic conditions portions of the fauna 
and flora! were enabled to continue their existence in localities 
reached by them in preglacial times. 
The British fauna is taken as a convenient starting point 
and is treated of in the third chapter. Examples are given of 
the more noteworthy forms belonging to the three foreign ele- 
ments of which it is composed, viz., the northern, eastern, and 
southern, as well as a small endemic one, and adhesion given 
to the almost unanimous opinion of biologists that the bulk of 
the British fauna and flora (biota? !) is attributable to invasions 
by land from the continent. As for the relative age of these 
invasions and the geological periods in which they entered the 
British Islands, Dr. Scharff feels convinced that the south- 
western or Lusitanian fauna, and also the flora, must have 
arrived before the glacial period and survived the latter. The 
Alpine and Oriental invasions arrived next. After these 
came the Arctic, and finally the eastern, or Siberian. The 
geological age of the latter is most easily traced because of 
the more complete fossil evidence at hand. As the Siberian 
invasion arrived in Germany after the deposition of the lower 
boulder clay, consequently after the first portion of the glacial 
period had passed, it would seem to follow that the Forest 
Bed in England, which geologists hold to be preglacial, must 
be interglacial, corresponding to the Loess formation of central 
Europe. The chapter concludes with statements of facts 
Showing a continuous coast line to have existed between 
France and Ireland. 
With the fourth chapter Dr. Scharff takes up in detail the 
discussion of what he calls the * Arctic fauna." The basic 
! The author, like many other writers on similar subjects, has felt the need of 
* comprehensive term to include both fauna and flora which will not only designate 
the total of animal and plant life of a given region or period, but also any treatise 
“pon the animals and plants of any geographical area or geological period. As 
Such a term I would suggest Biota, not only because its original significance cor- 
ers the above definition, but also because of its brevity and obvious relationship 
A the term « Biology " as embracing Zoólogy and Botany. Biotic would theo 
MY “pertaining to or treating of a biota,” as, — a biotic publication, a biotic 
egion. 
