Birds. 9179 
Two Days at Madeira. By ALFRED NEwrToN, M.A., F.LS., F.Z.S. 
To a naturalist, beyond any other traveller, I think, the aspect of a 
country he is visiting for the first time, in whatsoever part of the world 
it may lie, is a matter of great and never-ending interest. This interest 
is, of course, greatest in the case of a country whose natural produc- 
tions are entirely unknown; but it would not be inconsiderable even 
in one, if such there be, whose Fauna and Flora have been already 
thoroughly worked out. It accordingly follows that localities of the 
intermediate and most numerous class, where the animals and plants 
are already more or less catalogued, must possess an interest inversely 
proportionate to the amount of facts*which are on record concerning 
them. Such an instance of the middle class is offered by the cluster 
of islands known as the Madeiras, the field wherein one of the most 
reflective and diligent zoologists of our time has so long laboured. 
Even of those among us who take no special heed of Entomology, 
there can scarcely be one who has not been charmed with the writings 
of Mr. Wollaston, whether from the ardent love of nature and the keen 
powers of observation they betray, or the masterly handling of results 
and the sound inductive philosophy they evince. Ornithologists may 
well wish that a naturalist so gifted had paid as much attention to the 
birds of the Madeiras as to its beetles, and this without in any way 
depreciating the useful information respecting the former, furnished at 
various times by Mr. Edward Vernon Harcourt.* It is rather in the 
hope of encouraging some one who may have the opportunity’ of 
further studying Madeiran Ornithology that I venture to offer the 
following remarks; for I myself, during my late short visit, collected 
no specimens, and made no personal observations, possessing any 
novelty. 
The European character of the Madeiran Fauna is well known. Of 
the ninety-nine birds included in Mr. Vernon Harcourt’s latest and 
most complete list (Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., June, 1855, 2nd ser. 
vol. xv. pp. 430—438), only one, Procellaria pacifica, Awd. (if that be 
a good species, and rightly identified, which I think open to doubt), 
appears to be a straggler from the New World; but dhree are to be con- 
* “Notice of the Birds of Madeira,” P.Z.S., 1851, pp. 141—146, reprinted in 
Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. 2nd ser. vol. xii. pp. 58—63; ‘A Sketch of Madeira, 
London, 1851, pp. 115—123; “ Description of a New Species of Regulus from 
Madeira, P. Z.S., 1854, p. 153; and “ Notes on the Ornithology of Madeira,” Ann. 
and Mag. Nat. Hist., 2nd ser, vol. xv. pp. 430—438, 
