. In a previous paper I
classed such animals which had apparently originated in South-western
Europe, but had really come from Asia by a circuitous southern route,
with the Lusitanians. However, there is really no reason why the two
should not be kept apart, provided we can discriminate between the
pseudo-Lusitanians and the true ones. I have already indicated in the
last chapter how these pseudo-Lusitanian migrants originated.

Supposing an Oriental species had left Asia for Europe in miocene times,
it would on its arrival in Greece have had to decide between two
courses. It could either advance into the newly-formed Alpine peninsula
and there remain, or at once push on westward into Southern Italy,
Sicily, and Tunis, by means of the old land-connections, and thence into
Southern Spain. The Atlantic communicated at that time with the
Mediterranean across the valley of the Guadalquivir; but that connection
ceased to exist towards the end of the Miocene Epoch, when the Oriental
migrants were free to ramble through Spain and the whole of the North
European plain. I have indicated on a previous occasion (_a_, p. 484)
that the earliest members of the Red Deer migration, which have left
their traces in the caves of Malta, and whose descendants still live in
Corsica, Sardinia, and North Africa, may have found their way to
Northern Europe in this manner. Many other Asiatic mammals probably
reached the British Islands in a similar way.

I cannot call to mind any large species of mammal which we might
reasonably suppose to have originated in South-western Europe. Even
among the smaller ones, few give us any definite clue in this respect.
For instance, the present range of the genus _Myogale_--a small
Insectivore belonging to the Mole family (_Talpidae_)--teaches us
nothing. The two living species show discontinuous distribution, and are
almost confined to Europe. _Myogale_ occurs fossil in French miocene
deposits, but is unknown beyond the confines of our continent. It is
therefore probably of West European origin. The gap between the South
Russian _M. moschata_ and the Spanish _M. pyrenaica_ is bridged over in
so far as we know from fossil evidence that the former had a much wider
range in pleistocene times, being then found in England, Belgium, and
Germany. _Talpa_, too,--to which genus our common Mole belongs,--seems
to be a West European genus, since it occurs in French miocene deposits.
However, it would be difficult to na