18671882] INSULAR FLORAS 3 



on two old notes : one, that twenty-two species of European Letter 379 

 birds occasionally arrive as chance wanderers to the Azores ; 

 and, secondly, that trunks of American trees have been 

 known to be washed on the shores of the Canary Islands by 

 the Gulf-stream, which returns southward from the Azores. 

 What poor papers those of A. Murray are in Gardeners 

 Chronicle. What conclusions he draws from a single Carabus^ 

 and that a widely ranging genus ! He seems to me con- 

 ceited ; you and I are fair game geologically, but he refers 

 to Lyell, as if his opinion on a geological point was worth 

 no more than his own. I have just bought, but not read 

 a sentence of, Murray's big book, 2 second-hand, for 30^., new, 

 so I do not envy the publishers. It is clear to me that 

 the man cannot reason. I have had a very nice letter from 

 Scott at Calcutta 3 : he has been making some good obser- 

 vations on the acclimatisation of seeds from plants of same 

 species, grown in different countries, and likewise on how 

 far European plants will stand the climate of Calcutta. He 

 says he is astonished how well some flourish, and he main- 

 tains, if the land were unoccupied, several could easily cross, 

 spreading by seed, the Tropics from north to south, so he 

 knows how to please me ; but I have told him to be cautious, 

 else he will have dragons down on him. . . . 



As the Azores are only about two-and-a-half times more 

 distant from America (in the same latitude) than from Europe, 

 on the occasional migration view (especially as oceanic 

 currents come directly from West Indies and Florida, and 

 heavy gales of wind blow from the same direction), a large 

 percentage of the flora ought to be American ; as it is, we 

 have only the Sanicula, and at present we have no expla- 

 nation of this apparent anomaly, or only a feeble indication 

 of an explanation in the birds of the Azores being all 

 European. 



1 "Dr. Hooker on Insular Floras" (Gardeners' Chronicle, 1867, pp. 

 152, 181). The reference to the Carabidous beetle (Aplothorax) is at 

 p. 181. 



- Geographical Distribution of Mammals, 1866. 



3 See Letter 150. 



