The History of the European Fauna

by R. F. Scharff

Fig. 3.—Central Asiatic Sandgrouse (Syrrhaptes paradoxus).

The Siberian migrations will be spoken of in the subsequent pages, as the Siberian element of the European fauna. These migrations, however, are not the only ones which reached Europe from Asia. The sixth chapter deals with migrations which have influenced our fauna far more than the Siberian. The latter did not last long, nor did they affect the whole of Europe. But what I may call the Oriental migrations spread to every corner of Europe and certainly lasted throughout the whole of the Tertiary Era. The Oriental element came probably from Central and Southern Asia, and in its march to Northern Europe it was joined by local European migrations. For on our continent, too, animals originated and spread in all directions from their centres of dispersal. A separate chapter has been given to the Alpine fauna, and another to that of South-western Europe, which will be known by the name of the Lusitanian element. Finally, animals have also reached us from the north, and in the fourth chapter the history of that remarkable migration will be fully discussed under the title of the Arctic element of the European fauna.

It is generally believed that Africa played an important rôle in the peopling of our continent, but this is quite a mistake. The eminent Swiss palæontologist Rütimeyer was quite right in saying (p. 42) that it is much more probable that Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis were stocked with animals by way of Gibraltar, and perhaps also by Sicily and Malta, from Europe, than the South of Europe from Africa.

I have already referred to what are known as "centres of dispersion" of animals, but before continuing to explain the general outline of this book, it will be necessary to make a few additional remarks on the subject.

Since every animal naturally tends to spread in every direction from its original home—that is to say, from the place of its origin—the latter should correspond with the centre of its range. And in any particular group of animals the maximum number of species should be formed in the area or zone which is the centre of its distribution. In the great majority of instances this is probably the case, in the higher animals perhaps less so than in the lower; still the rule must hold good that the original home of a species is generally indicated by the centre of its geographical distribution.

Take for example our familiar Badger (Meles taxus). It inhabits Europe and Northern Asia. It is absent apparently from many parts of Central Asia, but it appears again farther south in Palestine, Syria, Persia, Turkestan, and Tibet. West Central Asia would be about the centre of its range. That this corresponds to its place of origin is indicated by the fact that the only three other Badgers known—viz., M. anakuma, M. leucurus, and M. albogularis—are confined to Asia. If we examine the fossil history of the genus, we find that the two most ancient instances of the existence of Badgers have been discovered in Persia, where M. Polaki and M. maraghanus occur in miocene deposits. The latter had migrated as far west as Greece in miocene times; no other trace of the Badger, however, is known from Europe until we come to the pleistocene beds. There are a good many cases known among mammals where the centre of dispersion would indicate to us a similar origin. On the other hand, there may be no fossil evidence of the occurrence of a species, or of its ancestors, in Asia, whilst such has been discovered in Europe. I think, however, that the present range of a species forms a safer criterion for the determination of its original home, as the Asiatic continent is still practically unworked from a palæontological point of view. In a letter which I received from Professor Charles Depéret, he advocates the view that the wild Boar (Sus scrofa) is probably of European, and not, as I maintained (c, p. 455), of Asiatic origin; because there seemed to be a direct descent from Hyotherium of the middle miocene of Europe, through the upper miocene Pig of the Mount Lebéron (Sus major) and of Eppelsheim (Sus antiquus), and the pliocene Pigs of Montpellier (Sus provincialis) and of the Auvergne (Sus arvernensis). No doubt this appears rather a strong case in favour of the European origin of the wild Boar, but although the Tertiary strata of Asia, as I remarked, are as yet little known, a number of fossil pigs are known from India, Persia, and China, the oldest being the upper miocene Persian Pig (Sus maraghanus). Pigs are therefore as old in Asia as in Europe, and as a direct intercourse between the two continents probably never ceased since miocene times, it is not surprising that this genus should occur in both. Even if the genus had its origin in Europe, it is quite possible that in later Tertiary times, the active centre of origin was shifted to the neighbouring continent, and that henceforth many new species issued forth from Asia, some of which may subsequently have been modified on reaching our continent. The wild Boar (Sus scrofa), however, to judge from its general range, I must look upon as merely an immigrant in Europe. I have no doubt that it originated somewhere in Asia, probably in the south.

The view I take of the origin of our European Boar is also supported by Dr. Forsyth Major's recent researches. He was led to a re-investigation of the history of the Pig while examining a large number of fossil skulls in the Museum at Florence, and came to the conclusion that only three or four species of recent wild pigs can be clearly distinguished (b, p. 298). One of these, viz., Sus vittatus, he thinks, is traceable in slight modifications from Sardinia to New Guinea and from Japan to South Africa. The centre of distribution of this species lies in Southern Asia. Of the three remaining species, two, viz., Sus verrucosus and S. barbarus, are entirely confined to the great islands which form part of the Malay Archipelago. Finally, Sus scrofa, our Central European wild Boar, is so closely related to S. vittatus that the Sardinian Boar might be looked upon as a variety of either the one or the other. At any rate, Dr. Major recognises clearly in Sus vittatus the representative of the ancestral stock of which Sus scrofa is a somewhat modified offshoot.

The fauna of Europe consists, as I have mentioned, to a large extent of immigrants from the neighbouring continents. This is especially noticeable among the higher animals. When we come to the lower, such as the amphibia, we find a larger percentage, and among the land mollusca the great majority, to be of European origin. The foreigners are, as we learned, called Orientals, Siberians, and Arctics. For the sake of convenience, only two of the great European centres of origin have a chapter devoted to themselves, namely, the Alpine and the Lusitanian centres. There is another, however, of almost equal importance which lies in the east.

In the British Islands there is only an exceedingly small and insignificant group of species which are peculiar, and which we may consider to have had their origin there. Almost the whole of the British fauna is composed of streams of migrants which came from the north, south, and east, though many of these immigrant species have since their arrival been more or less distinctly modified into varieties or local races.