es that migration has taken
place on land, so that we have our land-connection between Great Britain
and the Continent whatever theory we accept as to the direction taken by
the migrants. That the western borderland of Europe has given rise to
many important assemblages of animals in past times, seems to me also
exceedingly probable, nor do I look upon the British Islands as "barren
lands waiting to be peopled in pliocene or later times." On the
contrary, I believe an almost uninterrupted stream of migrants poured
into the British Isles before pliocene times from the south. But what I
thoroughly disagree with, is the remark that our British land-fauna has
been sent to the new steppes that opened eastward. These are the more or
less arid portions of Eastern Europe. Professor Cole no doubt has in
mind those species of mammals which I have included in what I called the
Siberian migration, and of which we have fossil evidence in the late
Tertiary deposits of Europe. It would be impossible here to discuss this
subject fully, especially as I have done so in the subsequent chapters;
but, even if we had no geological record whatsoever, the present range
of the species in question and their nearest relatives must convince us
that they could not have originated in Western Europe. However, on the
strength of the geological evidence, Professor Nehring--the only one who
has made this fauna his special study--remarks (p. 228), that there
seems scarcely any doubt that this steppe-fauna just referred to had
come to us from the east. Professors Boyd Dawkins, Brandt, and Lartet
held similar views.

The theory that an ice-sheet stretched across a narrow sea might be the
means of aiding a fauna across from the mainland to an island, is
particularly inapplicable to the British Islands. Neither Mr. Kinahan
nor Mr. Lamplugh, the two supporters of this view, have, however, taken
the trouble to apply it to more than one species of the British fauna.
An ice-bridge, thinks Mr. Kinahan, "could easily have connected Scotland
and Ireland, thus giving a land causeway for migration" (p. 3). Mr.
Lamplugh throws more light on this interesting speculation by giving us
the name of an animal which he believes crossed a narrow sea on a bridge
of ice. This animal unfortunately happens to be one whose remains have
never been found in high northern latitudes, viz., the Irish elk
(_Cervus giganteus_). And because he is of opinion that this species of
extinct de