THROUGH EUROPE AND TO THE ISLANDS OP THE ATLANTIC. 147 
Part II. 
Community of forms between the West of Ireland and Portugal 
— Before entering directly upon the subject of the fauna of the 
Atlantic islands, I may here he allowed to interpose a matter 
indirectly bearing upon it which has impressed itself upon my 
mind during these investigations. It is a good many years- 
since the late Professor Edward Forbes pointed out the 
remarkable fact that the fauna and flora of the south-west of 
Ireland were to some extent identical with those of Spain and 
Portugal ; in other words, that some plants and animals of 
Kerry and Connemara are peculiar to those parts of Ireland, 
and do not naturally occur in other parts of the British Islands, 
but are to be found in the Lusitanian Peninsula. Forbes- 
maintained that it was only by a former land connection that 
this community of species could be accounted for, and con- 
sequently that there must have been, at a very recent period, 
such a rise in the level of the ocean bed as to form a causeway 
between the two countries, along which these plants and 
animals migrated. Amongst the latter are to be found the 
rare little toad (Bufo calamita ) known as the “ Natterjack, ,r 
indigenous amongst the mountains of Kerry, and the spotted 
slug ( G-eomalacus maculosus ) which lies concealed under the 
stones in the same district. But the more characteristic forms- 
are those of the plants such as the Arbutus, several species of 
heath, together with, probably, the Osmunda regalis, which 
grows so luxuriantly by the Lakes of Killarney and western 
Donegal, also the “ filmy fern ” ( Trichomanes radicans), and the 
“London Pride” ( Saxafraga umbrosa). 
The former land migration of plants and animals appears 
to have its counterpart in that of the very ancient races of 
man who settled in Ireland, especially the Milesians, who 
became settlers in early pagan times. According to Miss 
Lawless (quoting from authorities, especially The Annals of the 
Four Masters*), there were four successive invasions : — 1, the 
* Ireland , by the Hon. Emily Lawless, in The Story of the Nations 
Series. According to Miss Eleanor Hull {Pagan Ireland, D. Nutt, 1904) 
there were five pre-Christian invasions, of which the third was that of the 
Firblogs, the fourth that of the Tuatha-da-Danaan, the fifth that of the 
Milesians, the ancestors of the present Irish people, supposed to have 
come from Scythia, by way of Egypt and Spain, and to have landed on 
the shore of Ireland at Inisfail, or “The Island of Destiny.” Miss Hull 
regards the Formorians not as settlers, but as sea rovers and pirates, like 
