MY ISLANDS. 15 



native trees or large bushes on the islands I mean the 

 only ones not directly planted by you mischief-making 

 men, who have entirely spoilt my nice little experiment. 

 It was much the same with the history of some among 

 the birds themselves. Not a few birds of prey, for 

 example, were driven to my little archipelago by stress 

 of weather in its very early days ; but they all perished 

 for want of sufficient small quarry to make a living out 

 of. As soon, however, as the islands had got well 

 stocked with robins, black-caps, wrens, and wagtails, of 

 European types as soon as the chaffinches had estab- 

 lished themselves on the seaward plains, and the canary 

 had learnt to nest without fear among the Portugal 

 laurels then buzzards, long-eared owls, and common 

 barn-owls, driven westward by tempests, began to pick 

 up a decent living on ail the islands, and have ever 

 since been permanent residents, to the immense terror 

 and discomfort of ' our smaller song-birds. Thus the 

 older the archipelago got the less chance was there of 

 local variation taking place to any large degree, because 

 the balance of life each day grew more closely to re- 

 semble that which each species had left behind it in its 

 native European or African mainland. 



I said a little while ago we had no mammal in the 

 islands. In that I was not quite strictly correct. I 

 ought to have said, no terrestrial mammal. A little 

 Spanish bat got blown to us once by a rough nor'-easter, 

 and took up its abode at once among the caves of our 

 archipelago, where it hawks to this day after our flies 

 and beetles. This seemed to me to show very con- 

 spicuously the advantage which wiuged animals have 



