A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 589 



of it and its poisonous effects. Its seeds, which are very hard, are 

 eaten by many birds, especially by the Catbird, and in this way it 

 could easily have been carried to Bermuda. About 50 species of 

 the native plants have a wide distribution, occurring in the Old 

 World as well as in America. 



In the chapter on geology I shall endeavor to show that most of 

 the earlier plants and animals of the Pliocene Period were extermi- 

 nated in Bermuda during the Glacial Period, owing to the distinctly 

 colder climate and the frosts that must have prevailed, at that time 

 in winter. Thus most of the plants of the present native flora have 

 arrived here since the Glacial Period. The few endemic species, 

 and some of the others, probably survived the Glacial Period, 

 because they were able to endure the lower temperatures and some 

 frost, or because they grew in very sheltered places, like the sinks 

 due to fallen caverns. Probably the Flora in the pre-g]acial periods 

 may have been more tropical than the present one. 



25. — Destructive Effects of the Wild Hogs, Wood Bats, Snails, 



Slugs, etc. 



a. — Effects of the Wild Hogs. 



Before the settlement of the islands the wild hogs had become 

 very abundant. Henry May, in 1594, spoke of their leanness, for 

 lack of food, in the winter season, when the cedar and palmetto 

 berries were gone. It is probable that those herds of wild hogs had 

 even then been on the islands for many years, and that they had 

 eaten up or destroyed nearly all the native, edible, herbaceous plants 

 long before the arrival of the settlers. This would account for the 

 absence or rarity of plants having edible roots or herbage. The 

 trees and shrubs having roots that they could eat would also have 

 been damaged or exterminated, for wild hogs, when nearly famished, 

 will root out and destroy the roots of many trees and shrubs that, at 

 other times, they will not disturb.* 



* In the pine barrens of North Carolina I have formerly seen, in winter and 

 early spring, large areas of pine lands where the half-wild hogs had dug t:p the 

 roots of the pitch-pines, even of the larger ones, and had eaten the bark entirely 

 off many of the upper roots. The ground under the trees looked, in many cases, 

 as if it had been ploughed up in every direction, over large areas. The smaller 

 trees were often overthrown and killed, while the larger ones were much 

 damaged. 



