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Show 1868.] MR. R. BROWN ON THE MAMMALS OF GREENLAND. 343 rican, though I am aware that opposite views are entertained by naturalists of high eminence. The mammalian fauna of Iceland has no connexion with that of either Greenland or Europe, that island not possessing a single species of mammal indigenous to it; all have been introduced by man, or, like the Ursus maritimus and Vulpes layopus, have drifted from Greenland on ice-floes. M y friend Mr. Andrew Murray * seems to take exception to a Mouse which is said to be found in Iceland, and regarding which wonderful tales are told t; and, contrary to the opinion of Povelsen, whoconsiders it Mus sylvaticus, L., and of the intelligent Icelanders, who, as represented by Sir W . J. Hooker, do not believe in its existence, thinks that it is Myodes torquatus (hudsonius, Yoxst.=gr'6n-landicus, Tr.). If such is the case, it might have been brought over on ice from the east coast of Greenland ; but the probability is that it does not exist, and that the only Mice in Iceland are the ones introduced by man, the ordinary Mus decumanus and M. musculus, almost cosmopolitan in their range. From these facts I believe that the island of Iceland is of a newer date than any portion of Scandinavia or Greenland, and, being of a volcanic nature, was formed posterior to the date of the present distribution of land and water in the North Sea. I can see no other conclusion which can be arrived at %. 4. Notes on the Habits, Distribution, and Synonymy of the Terrestrial Mammalia of Greenland. The following notes on certain of the terrestrial species of Mammalia are not intended as either a complete or systematic history of the species, but merely as stray notes on some points in their history hitherto passed over, and on the species as a Greenland animal. I have delayed entering upon the history of the Marine Mammalia until another time, m y observations on these species being too extensive to be included within the limits of one paper ; and, as I shall treat of them on a more comprehensive plan than as mere Greenland species, they do not properly come within the scope of a paper on Greenland Mammals. These notes comprehend my own observations during voyages to the Spitzbergen, Iceland, and Jan Mayen seas, and along the eastern and western shores of Davis's Strait and Baffin's Bay, to near the mouth of Smith's Sound, in 1861. During the past summer I have again visited Danish Greenland for scientific purposes, but have added little or nothing to m y former notes, having seen few M a m malia, except some of the species of Pinnipedia and a Cetacean or * Geographical Distribution of Mammals (186G). t Pennant,'Arctic Zoology,' Introduction, p. lxx ; Hooker's ' Tour hi Iceland,' i. pp. 51-52. + Vide J. D. Hooker, Linn. Trans. 1862; Asa Gray, 'American Journal of Science,' 18G2; J. W . Dawson, 'Canadian Naturalist and Geologist,' 1862, pp. 334-344; and Murray, 'Geogr. Dist. Mamm.,' for the phytogeographical views of the origin of the Greenland flora and fauna at present received. |