430 i\Ir. E. V. Harcourt on the Ornithology of Madeira. 



XXXVIII. — Notes on the Ornithology of Madeira. 

 By Edward Verxon Harcourt, Esq. 



To the Editors of the Annals of Natural History. 

 Gentlemen, 



Since publishing a short notice of the ornithology of Madeira* 

 in the year 1851, I have received a few additional specimens of 

 birds from that island : I am not aware that any other fuller list 

 than the annexed has yet been drawn up ; I therefore send it to 

 you, together with a few remarks corrected from my former ob- 

 servations on the subject, in case you may think them of sufl&- 

 cient interest to merit a place in the ' Annals.' 



With one exception, Madeira possesses no birds peculiar to its 

 own shores ; although the influence of its genial climate exercises 

 such a modifying power over the tints of its feathered denizens 

 as analogy would lead us to expect. For example, the Greater 

 Redpole or Linnet, which is very abundantly met with in the 

 island, retains its bright carmine plumage through the year ; the 

 Herring Gull, also very common, is, according to Dr. Renton, 

 quicker by some months in obtaining its mature garb than with 

 us; and the Black-cap Warbler assumes, in some instances, an 

 intensity of colour, which has led to its being described by 

 Sir W. Jardine as a new speciesf- 



Indeed were it otherwise, it would be a matter of astonish- 

 ment that birds alone should be exempted from a law of nature 

 by which climate exercises so large a power over those secretions 

 which are the mysterious agents for the production of colour. 



The position of Madeira, midway betwixt the temperate and 

 torrid zones, has sometimes given rise to doubts in the minds of 

 geographers as to whether it were most African or European. If 

 considered in relation to its natural productions, its pine-apples, 

 guavas, mangos, shaddocks, and bananas, which ripen a tropical 

 fruitage, would point to a preponderating African affinity ; on 

 the other hand, its indigenous birds, with the exception of the 

 Wren, the Chaffinch and the Swift, are all strictly European. 



The adaptation of species to the climates they are designed to 

 inhabit can never fail to fill the mind with admii-ation of the 

 providence of the Creator ; and the importance of the study of 

 geographical ornithology has been fully admitted by modern 

 naturalists. Looked upon in this point of view, the smallness 

 of the sphere of observation becomes a matter of secondaiy con- 



* Sketch of Madeira. Murray, 1851 ; and Annals, vol. xii. p. 58. 

 t Edin. Journ. of Nat. and Geog. Science, Jan. 1830, vol. i. p. 243. 



