262 



ISLAND LIFE 



PART II 



south-westerly return trades and also of the Gulf Stream, 

 and we should therefore naturally expect that American 

 birds, insects, and plants would preponderate if they were 

 conveyed by the regular winds and currents, which are 

 both such as to prevent European species from reaching 

 the islands. But the violent storms to which the Azores 

 are liable blow from all points of the compass ; and it is 

 evidently to these, combined with the greater proximity 

 and more favourable situation of the coasts of Europe and 

 North Africa, that the presence of a fauna and flora so 

 decidedly European is to be traced. 



The other North Atlantic Islands — Madeira, the Can- 

 aries, and the Cape de Verdes —present analogous phen- 

 omena to those of the Azores, but with some peculiarities 

 dependent on their more southern position, their richer 

 vegetation, and perhaps their greater antiquity. These 

 have been sufficiently discussed in my Geographical Dis- 

 tribution of Animals (Vol. I. pp. 208-215) ; while a special 

 study of the beetles of Madeira as illustrating the origin 

 and peculiarities of insular faunas, will be found in my 

 Sttidies Scientific and Social, Vol. I., Chapter XII. We 

 will therefore pass on to other cases which have been less 

 fully discussed elsewhere. 



BERMUDA. 



The Bermudas are a small group of low islands formed 

 of coral, and blown coral-sand consolidated into rock. 

 They are situated in 32° N. Lat.^ about 700 miles from 

 North Carolina, and somewhat farther from the Bahama 

 Islands, and are thus rather more favourably placed for 

 receiving immigrants from America and its islands than the 

 Azores are with respect to Europe. There are about 100 

 islands and islets in all, but their total area does not ex- 

 ceed fifty square miles. They are surrounded by reefs, 

 some at a distance of thirty miles from the main group ; 

 and the discovery of a layer of earth with remains of 

 cedar- trees forty- eight feet below the present high-water 

 mark shows that the islands have once been more extensive 

 and probably included the whole area now occupied by 

 shoals and reefs.^ Immediately beyond these reefs, how- 



^ Nature, Vol. VL p. 262, "Recent Observations in the Bermudas," bj 

 Mr. J. Matthew Jones. 



