THE BIRDS OF THE BERMUDAS. . 
I resided there, no less than seventy-nine species were recorded, 
sixty-eight of these by myself personally. I was only able, how- 
ever, to obtain specimens of sixty-one of these, but that, of course, 
far exceeded my original expectations. The winter of 1874-75 was 
not exactly a favourable one for a collector, few violent storms 
occurring at critical times to drive the birds to the strange and 
unexpected shelter in mid-ocean. I worked hard—as hard, that is 
to say, as my multifarious duties as an engineer officer would 
permit—but many things were against me. In the first place, the 
peculiar elongated shape of the group of islands, and the long 
distances between the various swamps and ‘‘likely”’ places, to say 
nothing of the indifferent character of the roads, render it no easy 
task to ‘‘register’’ even a particular district in the course of an 
afternoon. The climate, too, except when the wind is from the 
north in winter time, is warm and damp, and much against a long 
struggle through the sage bush and scrubby cedars which clothe 
the hills, or over the rough steel-pointed rocks of the shore. Then 
there is such an extent of cedar forest, dotted here and there with 
patches of highly-cultivated garden, that it is hard to find birds, 
or, when found, to follow them up. Mosquitoes are frightfully 
large and ferocious in summer and autumn, especially in and 
around the ponds and swamps. Many a time have I lost a long- 
expected shot by having to brush the little torments in dozens 
from my nose and eyes. And as to believing a word the good- 
natured coloured people tell you about the extraordinary birds 
_ they see, it is simply impossible. 
But, in spite of these drawbacks, I enjoyed my ornithological 
labours vastly, and look back with pleasure not only to the suc- 
cessful stalk or lucky snap-shot which occasionally rewarded my 
exertions, but also to the numerous instructive hours I passsd, 
field-glass in hand, in the deepest recesses of the swamps or on the 
open shore, watching the agile Mniotilta varia and the comical 
Totanus solitarius, or listening to the loud musical ‘‘chip’’ of 
Seiurus noveboracensis, and the harsh, grating cry of the Phaétons. 
In the following notes I have largely availed myself of those of 
Major Wedderburn (late 42nd Highlanders) and Mr. Hurdis 
(formerly Controller of Customs in the islands), which have already 
been given to the public in a little work, entitled ‘‘ The Naturalist 
in Bermuda,”’ to which | have already alluded; also of the collec- 
tion of birds formed, during the last twenty-five years, by Mr. 
Bartram, of Stocks Point, near St. George’s. I trust I may be 
held excused for the constant references to these sources of infor- 
mation, both by the gentlemen named and by the indulgent orni- 
thological reader. Major Wedderburn and Mr. Hurdis compiled 
their valuable notes long before my time, as may be inferred from 
the date of the book mentioned (1859); and since their departure 
no one, except my friend Mr. J. M. Jones, appears to have kept 
any record of the bird-life of the islands—more’s the pity. With 
Mr. Bartram, now an elderly man, I struck up a great friendship, 
and I spent mauy an afternoon poring over his birds. Of these I 
made out a catalogue for him, likely, I think, to defy the criticism 
of his ordinary visitors, though I cannot quite vouch for its accu- 
