RELATIONSHIP OF THE FAUNA. 81 



The bird fauna of the Bermudas, including both land and 

 water forms, comprises, as far as is known, some 187 or 188 

 species, M'hich, with two or three exceptions, are members of 

 the North American fauna. These exceptions are the sky- 

 lark {Alauda orveusls), common European snipe {Gallinago 

 media), and gold-finch (Carduelis elegans). The first, of which 

 but a single specimen has been obtained, has generally been 

 considered to be an escaped cage-bird, but Savile Reid, in his 

 review of the birds of Bermuda (Bull. U. S. National Museum, 

 Xo. 25, 1884, p. 178), believes it to have been more likely an 

 inblown straggler. Seemingly only two specimens of the 

 European snipe have been recorded, both of them from Pem- 

 broke Marsh, where they were shot in December 1847, by 

 Colonel Wedderburn. The single specimen of gold-finch was 

 ob.served by Savile Reid near Harrington Sound, in April, 

 1875; it was very wild, but is still supposed to have been 

 an escaped prisoner. Two other European birds, the wheat-ear 

 {Saxicola oenanthe) and land-rail {Crez pratensis), have also been 

 noted in the Bermudas, but both of these find their way to 

 Greenland and the mainland of America, so that their occur- 

 rence is less remarkable than that of the other forms. 



Of the entire Bermudian avifauna somewhat less than one- 

 half the species are land-birds, and of these a fair proportion 

 have been observed only on one or two occasions. There 

 appear to be but eleven permanent residents, nine land-birds, 

 and two water-birds, to wit: cat-bird {Galeoscoptes Carolinerms), 

 blue-bird {Sialia sialis), white-eyed vireo ( Vireo Novehoracensis), 

 English sparrow {Passer domesticus), cardinal-bird {Cardinalis 

 cardinalis), crow {Corvus Americanus), Virginia quail {Colinus 

 Virginianus), ground dove ( Columbigallina passerina), great blue 

 heron {Ardea herodias), Florida gallinule {Gallinula galeata), 

 and tropic-bird {Phaeton flavirostris). Two or three species of 

 shearwater {Puffinus Anglorum, P. obscurus, ? P. opisthomelas) 

 have at intervals been found breeding in the Bermudas, but 

 seemingly they have now deserted these islands for other 



