ScHARFF — Some Remarks on the Atlantis Prohlcm. 275 



depths — at least, in oceans of the Athantic type — and that lie believed 

 some kind of a coast-line stretched across the present Atlantic ocean 

 during part of Tertiary times (pp. 185-186), 



It now remains for me to deal with Dr. Wallace's third statement — 

 that the Atlantic Islands possess no indigenous land-mammalia. " It is 

 true," he remarks, "that rabbits, weasels, rats, and mice, and a small 

 lizard peculiar to Madeira and Teneriffe, are now found wild in the 

 Azores ; but there is good reason to believe that these have all been 

 introduced by human agency" (A, p 248). Dr. Wallace does not inform 

 us what are his grounds for believing in the artificial introduction of 

 the species referred to. I can find no records of such introductions 

 having taken place, and the results of my endeavoiu's to trace the 

 history of their origin on the islands point rather to some of them, at 

 any rate, having reached the latter in the normal way, which is by a 

 former land-connexion with Europe. 



Take the rabbit, for example. We are natiu-ally led to assume 

 that this destructive rodent was brought over by the Portuguese 

 when they first colonized the islands. But when the Azorean archi- 

 pelago was discovered by a Flemish merchant sailing from Lisbon, in 

 1439, the most striking featxu-e of the islands was the abundance of 

 hawks, fi-om which fact the name " Agores" (meaning hawks) was 

 given to them. iS'ow these hawks, which still frec^uent the islands 

 are really buzzards {Btiteo vulgaris) ; and these birds usually live upon 

 small mammals, such as mice, rats, and young rabbits. It seems 

 probable, therefore, that such animals already inhabited the Azores 

 when the Portuguese first set foot on the islands. But this supposition 

 receives confirmation from a still earlier record of the history of the 

 islands. Though uninhabited by man, the existence of the Azores had 

 already been known to earlier navigators, and had since fallen into 

 oblivion. 



In a book {libro del eonocimiento) published in 1345, by a Spanish 

 mendicant fiiar, the Azores were abeady referred to, and the names of 

 the individual islands given. In fact, the islands even make their 

 appearance in an atlas issued about that time. The atlas is of unknown 

 authorship, but was probably drawn by a Genoese. Towards the eud 

 of the same century in 1385, another atlas was published at Venice ' — 



1 Mr. Lyster kindly drew my attention to the splendid seiies of reproductions 

 of ancient maps in Nordenskiold's " Periplus " contained in our National Library 

 of Ireland. Though the position and size of the Azores in these old maps is 

 incorrectly marked, there can be no doubt that the e;u-ly Italian navigators had 

 discovered them, and had roughly sketched their bearings as indicated. 



