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
The Arctic Hare presents us with a very similar case of distribution.
Like the Reindeer, it inhabits, as we have learned, the Polar Regions
and the northerly parts of the Old World and the New; but while we have
only fossil evidence of the former, more southerly, extension of the
range of the Reindeer, the Arctic Hare furnishes us with a still
stronger proof of its past southward range in the survival of small
isolated colonies in some of the southern mountain ranges of Europe and
Asia. It is generally believed that the occurrence of the Arctic Hare in
these southern mountains is a standing testimony to the severity of the
climate at the time when it commenced its southerly increase of range,
but I have already shown that the climate of Europe at that time was not
necessarily colder than it is at present, but that it may have been
somewhat milder (p. 80). I think that a vast increase of ice in the
Polar Regions has taken place only at a comparatively recent date, and
that both the Reindeer and the Arctic Hare originated there during a
much more temperate climate than obtains at present. A great sensation
was produced among European zoologists and anthropologists when the
discovery was first announced that the remains of the Reindeer had been
found in the Pyrenees, and it naturally gave rise to many speculations
as to the nature of the climate at the time when its range extended so
far south.[1] The greater number of our best authorities are still of
opinion that the existence of the Reindeer in Southern Europe points to
the prevalence of an arctic climate in that region. It is generally
overlooked, however, that the Reindeer-remains occur in company with
many typically southern animals, which, if they had been found alone,
would have been held to be a certain indication of a warm climate. The
French geologist Professor Lartet, indeed, was of opinion that the
temperature during the time when the Reindeer lived in the Pyrenees must
have been rather milder than it is at present (compare pp. 71-75).
Similarly, Mr. Harlé argues, that the extremely cold climate probably
did not extend to South-western France, since that area only received
occasional visits from some of the representatives of the Arctic fauna.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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