Though the origin of the Alpine Hare has already been referred to and fully discussed in a previous chapter (p. 148), the conclusions arrived at may be once more repeated. The Alpine Hare (_Lepus variabilis_) is of Arctic origin. It spread southward into Europe, North America, and Asia in early glacial times, and reached our continent from Spitsbergen by means of a direct land-connection with Lapland. The Scandinavian peninsula was then separated from Russia, but connected with Scotland and Ireland (Fig. 13, p. 170). Since England was then united to France, the Alpine Hare was able to invade western continental Europe and all the mountain ranges. Its range is very discontinuous, small colonies being scattered all over the mountainous parts of the Northern Hemisphere, while the European Hare--a closely allied species--occurs in the plain, and now occupies to some extent the former haunts of the Alpine Hare (cf. Fig. 8, p. 137). Might not the European Hare, as suggested, possess some advantages which enabled it to drive the other into more inaccessible parts, thus producing the peculiarity of range? The present distribution of the Alpine and the European Hare (_L. Europæus_) appears to me to strongly support such an assumption. It is not the cold which has driven the Alpine Hare to the Alps; and its presence there is not, as is often supposed, a "_standing testimony of a former arctic climate_" in Europe, but merely the necessary consequence of the weaker species being thrust into less accessible regions by a stronger rival. _Muscardinus avellanarius_,--the common Dormouse,--though by no means confined to the Alps, has probably originated there. It is found up to a height of nearly 5000 feet in these mountains, and is spread over Europe at nearly equal distances from the Alps in all directions. Being absent from Ireland, Scotland, Norway, and Northern Russia, it seems as if it had only diffused northward in more recent times. The closely allied genus _Myoxus_ is likewise of European extraction, some species being known from French eocene deposits. There are only a few typically Alpine Birds. One of these is the Alpine Accentor (_Accentor collaris_), which on rare occasions visits England, and Northern Europe generally. It is, however, by no means peculiar to the European Alps; a variety of this species occurs in Central Asia, Eastern Siberia, and Japan. The only other Accentor inhabiting our continent is the Hedge Accentor (_A. modularis_), which is resident over the greater part of it, and also in North Africa and the Mediterranean Islands. It also extends its range across the Ægean Sea to Asia Minor, so that really not a single Accentor is peculiar to Europe.