The History of the European FaunaScharff, R. F. (Robert Francis)
History
The History of the European Fauna
Scharff, R. F. (Robert Francis)
Animals -- Europe; Zoogeography
At the time when the North European Sea flooded a portion of England,
Scandinavia was still connected with Scotland, and the latter with
Ireland (Fig. 6, p. 126). There is no doubt that the food-supply in the
Arctic Regions was decreasing with an increase of snowfall and with the
gradual lowering of the land, which reduced also the habitable area.
Arctic species therefore were driven south in search of fresh pastures.
But it need not be supposed that anything like a vast destruction of the
fauna of the Arctic Regions took place. Only fewer mammals were able to
find food in a given space than heretofore. This southward migration may
have commenced, in the case of plants and the invertebrates, at a much
earlier time,--during the Miocene or Pliocene Epochs,--but it is
doubtful whether the mammals and birds which we find in our pleistocene
and recent deposits began to travel south much before the commencement
of the Glacial period. The beginning of the Glacial period in England, I
think, is indicated by the deposition of the Red Crag, though the latter
is generally regarded as belonging to the pliocene series. Much of the
northward migration from the British Islands of Lusitanian and other
forms had then ceased, but we have in Scandinavia, just as in these
islands, a southern relict fauna and flora, plants and animals which had
wandered across what is now the German Ocean from Scotland to
Scandinavia, and have never become extinct in that country to the
present day. I need only mention the Red Deer, the Badger, and Slugs of
the genus _Arion_.
Professor Blytt directs attention to some such southern relict species
of plants now only found in the extreme south-west of Scandinavia, such
as _Asplenium marinum_, _Hymenophyllum Wilsoni_, _Carex binervis_,
_Scilla verna_, _Erica cinerea_, _Conopodium denudatum_, _Meum
athamanticum_, and _Rosa involuta_ (p. 28).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account