A Hand-book to the British Mammalia

# British Mammals

This is a scientific natural history monograph on British mammals, authored by Richard Lydekker with editorial oversight by R. Bowdler Sharpe. The work provides comprehensive systematic coverage of living British mammal species across multiple orders: Chiroptera (bats including horse-shoe bats and pipistrelles), Insectivora (hedgehogs, shrews, moles), Carnivora (wildcats, foxes, stoats, badgers, otters, seals), Rodentia (squirrels, dormice, voles, rats, hares), Ungulata (cattle, deer), and Cetacea (whales and dolphins). The volume includes the first systematic account of British mammals exterminated within the historic period and sections on fossil forms. It features discussions of geographical distribution, nomenclatural updates since Bell's 1874 work, and behavioral observations drawing on Macgillivray and other naturalists. An introductory section addresses biogeographical evidence for Britain's former land connection to the Continent, supported by submerged forests, ancient drainage channels, and Pleistocene fossils, explaining both the similarity and differences between British and Continental mammalian faunas.