190 Mr. A. Newton's two Days at Madeira. 



British as distinguished from Continental forms; and Mr. 

 Wollaston has pointed out the probability of variation being 

 dependent on the length of the period through which isolation 

 has lasted. It is, accordingly, well to examine the evidence 

 afforded by geology. Professor Edward Forbes supposed that 

 the Madeiras and other Atlantic islands were the summits of a 

 Miocene continent * ; and Sir Charles Lyell has quite lately de- 

 clared his belief that, " waiving all such claims to antiquity, it is 

 at least certain that, since the close of the newer Pliocene period, 

 Madeira and Porto Santo have constituted two separate 

 islands " t y while he further asserts that the naturalist is " en- 

 titled to assume the former union, within the post-pliocene 

 period, of all the British isles with each other and with the 

 continent ^^ J. It, therefore, appears to me that the differences 

 of variation observable between the birds of the British islands 

 and Madeira respectively and those of the Continent of Europe 

 are exactly in accordance with these statements. 



The foregoing remarks I have made only in the hope of 

 showing how much more remains to be done by the ornitho- 

 logist in the Madeiras. I must now recount my own impres- 

 sions, formed during my short stay of two days. On October 

 20th, 1862, 1 left Southampton, a passenger on board the Royal 

 Mail steam-ship ' Tamar.' We had a rough night of it going 

 down channel, and the following morning found ourselves at 

 anchor in Torbay, where our captain determined to wait till the 

 spell of bad weather was over. How it rained, and how it blew, 

 and how those on board managed to kill time, I need not here 

 say. The scenery of that beautiful bay, to me so familiar, was 

 generally obscured; but every now and then one obtained a 

 glimpse of some well-known feature, bringing back lively and 

 pleasurable reminiscences of more than ten years since. One 

 agreeable circumstance of our three days' detention was the recog- 

 nition of a party of old friends, whose acquaintance it had been 

 my good fortune to make several years before in far distant lati- 

 tudes. A company of about thirty Pomatorhine Skuas {Lestris 



* Geol. Survey of the United Kingdom, vol. i. pp. 348-350, and p. 400. 

 t The x\ntiqiiity of Man, p. 444. X Ibid. p. 277- 



