As we have seen in dealing with the glacial movements, Britain was at one time part of the continent and there was no North Sea. At the best it is a shallow sea, and a very trifling elevation of its floor would re-connect Scotland with Europe. It follows that our country was inhabited by the same kind of animals as inhabited Western Europe. Many of them are now extinct, cave-bears, hyaenas and sabre-toothed tigers. All these were starved out of existence by the inroads of the ice. After the ice disappeared this country remained joined to the continent, and as long as the connection was maintained the land-animals of Europe were able to cross over and occupy the ground; if the connection had not been severed, there would have been no difference between our fauna and the animals of Northern France and Belgium. But the land sank, and the North Sea filled up the hollow, creating a barrier before all the species in Northern Europe had been able to effect a footing in our country. This applies both to plants and animals. While Germany has nearly ninety species of land animals, Great Britain has barely forty. All the mammals, reptiles and amphibians that we have, are found on the continent besides a great many that we do not possess. Still Scotland can boast of its red grouse, which is not seen on the continent. With every variety of situation, from exposed sea-board to sheltered valley and lofty mountain, the flora of Aberdeenshire shows a pleasing and interesting variety. The plants of the sea-shore, of the waysides, of the river-banks, and of the lowland peat-mosses are necessarily different in many respects from those of the great mountain heights. It is impossible here to do more than indicate one or two of the leading features. The sandy tracts north of the Ythan mouth have characteristic plants, wild rue, sea-thrift, rock-rose, grass of Parnassus, catch-fly (_Silene maritima_). The waysides are brilliant with blue-bells, speedwell, thistles, yarrow and violas. The peat-mosses show patches of louse-wort, sundew, St John’s wort, cotton-grass, butterwort and ragged robin. The pine-woods display an undergrowth of blae-berries, galliums, winter-green, veronicas and geraniums. The _Linnaea borealis_ is exceedingly rare, but has a few localities known to enterprising botanists. The whin and the broom in May and June add conspicuous colouring to the landscape while a different tint of yellow shines in the oat-fields, which are throughout the county more or less crowded with wild mustard or charlock. The granitic hills are all mantled with heather (common ling, _Calluna erica_) up to 3000 feet, brown in winter and spring but taking on a rich purple hue when it breaks into flower in early August. The purple bell-heather does not rise beyond 2000 feet and flowers much earlier. Through the heather trails the stag-moss, and the pyrola and the genista thrust their blossoms above the sea of purple. The cranberry, the crow-berry and the whortle-berry, and