THE BIRDS OF THE BERMUDAS. 395 
colubris, and the Blue Yellow-backed Warbler, Parula americana, 
can find their way across six hundred miles of water in safety, 
where is the line to be drawn? 
With the exception of a solitary example of the European Sky 
Lark, dlauda arvensis, obtained in 1850, the whole of the birds 
recorded in the Bermuda list are included in that of North 
America, and no species has as yet been discovered peculiar to the 
islands. This, if we accept the theory of the comparatively recent 
“ Molian” formation of the group, is not to be wondered at. At 
one time I actually had great hopes of establishing a real ’Mudian 
species, as I several times observed a small brown bird, remarkably 
shy and mouse-like in its habits, among the dense rushes and scrub 
of the larger swamps, and this I could not refer to any known 
North American form. I had a good view of one, too, close to me, 
one Snnday afternoon (of course it was on a Sunday, when I had 
no gun with me), and carefully took stock of the little fellow; but, 
as I never succeeded in procuring a specimen, I must perforce 
leave the question undecided, in the hope that someone may be 
more fortunate in this respect than myself. 
Rejecting doubtful occurrences, one hundred and eighty-one 
species are known to have occurred in the Bermudas up to June 
3rd, 1875. Since then two more species, Certhia familiaris and 
Limosa hudsonica, have been added. During the fourteen months 
I resided there, no less than seventy-nine species were recorded, 
sixty-eight of these by myself personally. I was only able, 
however, 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. 
