9184 Birds. 
niscences of more than ten years since. One agreeable circumstance 
of our three days’ detention was the recognition of a party of old 
friends, whose acquaintance it had been my good fortune to make 
several years before in far distant latitudes. A company of about thirty 
Pomatorhine skuas (Lestris pomatorhinus*) were in close attendance 
on our ship, and about as many more round each of two other craft, 
weather-bound, like ourselves. They were very tame, coming close 
alongside the quarter-deck in quest of food; and dire was the strife, 
and loud the contention, as one lucky bird after another seized on 
some choice morsel, and conveyed it far astern to devour it at leisure. 
Late in the evening of the 23rd the wind shifted, the glass rose; and 
shortly before midnight we had our steam up, our anchor weighed, and 
we were rounding, first, Berry Head, then the Start, and then were 
fairly on our course for Funchal. The next few days were passed as 
days are commonly passed at sea. We had favourable weather, and 
the passengers came gradually creeping up to deck, as flies show them- 
selves in the first sunny days of spring. Two or three gulls, apparently 
kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla), occasionally convoyed us; and the 
various persons on board slowly fraternized. I was gratified to 
find several representatives of zoological science among my com- 
panions,—Mr. William Hinton, to whom Mr. E. Vernon Harcourt 
was indebted for many ornithological facts, as recorded in his earliest 
paper; Mr. J. Y. Johnson, who has lately pursued the subject of 
Madeiran Ichthyology with as much zeal as success; and Mr. Robert 
Swift, the well-known conchologist, of St. Thomas, West Indies. On 
the 28th, about noon, we were boarded by a pretty Saxicoline bird, 
no doubt a South-European species, and I should suppose, either 
Saxicola stapazina or S. aurita; but as it was to all appearance a 
young bird in the first plumage, and I am not acquainted with either 
form in its immature dress, I could not be certain. It was tame 
enough, but declined to take any notice of a few crumbs of bread (all 
I had to offer by way of hospitality); and it did not stay with us very 
long. About five o’clock in the evening, land was announced on the 
starboard bow, which our captain recognized as Porto Santo. By the 
time I got on deck it was shrouded in a heavy rain-cloud, and required 
some amount of faith to believe in its existence. Later it became. 
much plainer, and we ran by it, then sighted Madeira proper and the 
Dezertas, and finally dropped our anchor in Funchal Roads about 
midnight. 
* T fully accept Herr Preyer’s derivation of the name of this bird, commonly 
written “ pomarinus,” and Dr. Sclater’s emendation of the same (‘ Ibis,’ 1862, p. 297). 
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