146 Dr Heineken an the Birds of Madeira. 



friend B/' (as he calls him,) might have given his elbow a 

 friendly jog upon the occasion.* 



Oriolus galhula. Several orioles were shot here in May 

 1828, after several days of sirocco (S. E.) wind, which blows 

 directly from the coast of Africa. Some stragglers were met 

 with a month or two later, but none since. 1 did not see 

 one young. 



Sturnus vulgaris. Two were seen and one killed on the 

 beach at Santa Cruz, about three leagues to the east of Fun- 

 chal, during the summer 1829- I bad heard of, but not seen, 

 the bird here before, and it is only an accidental visitor. At 

 the Canaries and Azores, it is, I am told, common. 



* " Men of all sorts seem to take pride to gird at us /" The length of 

 our island was only determined the other day ; the breadth is still sub 

 Judice ; and whether we are Europeans or Africans, a matter in dispute. 

 The pathetic tale of the first discovery of the place is like Adah, *' fair" as 

 fancy, " could make its offspring." — *' Still it is delusion, " I fear, and 

 Machim and his Anna as much the " sweet creation of some heart," as 

 Numa and his Nymph. The poetical Bowles sets our woods " trembling 

 to A kiss." The matter of fact Cordeyro set them " on fire for seven 

 years!" Israeli, in " The Curiosities of Literature," says *' a modern tra- 

 veller (he should have recorded the name) assures us that he has repeat' 

 edly observed in the island of Madeira that the lizards are attracted by the 

 notes of music, and that he has assembled a number of them by the powers 

 of his instrument !" Gourlay made them into raw sandwiches (the canni- 

 bal) for breakfast, and thus cured an incurable disorder. The same worthy 

 makes Pico ruivo 8000 feet in height, — a trijlhig addition to its real eleva- 

 tion of some 2000 feet or thereabouts ; and the flippant writer of " Six 

 Months in the West Indies," amongst other unheard of wonders, makes a 

 Well known ravine in the centre of the island (the Canal, and from which 

 one of our largest mountain torrents rushes impetuously into the sea) about 

 AOO feet below the level of the ocean, by an insignificant error of only 2000 

 feet of depth ! Even Spix and Martius could not resist the endemic which 

 seems to invade our shores, for in one short day they detected half our 

 population in Funchal to consist of Negroes, although there are not a 

 hundred distributed Over the whole island. Bowdich I add to the list, 

 much more in sorrow than in anger. His means were not commensurate 

 with his ends ; and, had time and opportunity been afforded him, he 

 would, I have no doubt, have seen and corrected many of the errors into 

 which haste, inauspicious circumstances, and the res angustoe domi, be- 

 trayed him ; and the best compliment T can pay to his memory is, to point 

 out whatever may appear to be erroneou?, under the conviction, that doing 

 so would hate been congenial to hi« wishes if living. 



