266 



ISLAND LIFE 



PART II 



or of the minute organisms which abound in the 

 blown sand/ 



Zoology of Bermuda. — As might be expected from their 

 extreme isolation, these islands possess no indigenous 

 terrestrial mammalia, frogs, or snakes.^ There is however 

 one lizard, which Professor Cope considers to be distinct 

 from any American species, and which he has named 

 Plcstiodon {Eumeces) longirostris. It is said to be most 

 nearly allied to Eumeces quinquelineatus of the south- 

 eastern States, from which it differs in having nearly ten 

 more rows of scales, the tail thicker, and the muzzle longer. 

 In colour it is ashy brown above, greenish blue beneath, 

 with a white line black-margined on the sides, and it 

 seems to be tolerably abundant in the islands. This lizard 

 is especially interesting as being the only vertebrate animal 

 which exhibits any peculiarity. 



Birds. — Notwithstanding its small size, low altitude and 



^ "The late Sir C. Wyville Thomson was of opinion that the 'red 

 earth ' which largely forms the soil of Bermuda had an organic origin, as 

 well as the ' red clay ' which the Challenger discovered in all the greater 

 depths of the ocean basins. He regarded the red earth and red clay as an 

 ash left behind after the gradual removal of the lime by water charged with 

 carbonic acid. This ash he regarded as a constituent part of the shells of 

 Foraminifera, skeletons of Corals, and Molluscs, \yide Voyage of the 

 Challenger, Atlantic, Vol. I. p. 316]. This theory does not seem to be in 

 any way tenable. Analysis of carefully selected shells of Foraminifera, 

 Heteropods, and Pteropods, did not show the slightest trace of alumina, 

 and none has as yet been discovered in coral skeletons. It is most 

 probable that a large part of the clayey matter found in red clay and the 

 red earth of Bermuda is derived from tlie disintegration of pumice, which 

 is continually found floating on the surface of the sea. [See Murray, "On 

 the Distribution of Volcanic Debris Over the Floor of the Ocean ; " Proc. 

 Boy. Soc. Edin. Vol. IX. pp. 247-261. 1876-1877.] The naturalists of the 

 Challenger found it among the floating masses of gulf weed, and it is 

 frequently picked up on the reefs of Bermuda and other coral islands. 

 The red earth contains a good many fragments of magnetite, augite, felspar, 

 and glassy fragments, and when a large quantity of the rock of Bermuda 

 is dissolved away with acid, a small number of fragments are also met with. 

 These mineral particles most probably came originally from the pumice 

 which had been cast up on the island for long ages (for it is known that 

 these minerals are present in pumice), although possibly some of them may 

 have come from the volcanic rock, which is believed to form the nucleus 

 of the island." The Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger, Narrative of the Cruise, 

 Vol, I, 1885, pp. 141—142. 



2 Four bats occur rarely, two being N. American, and two "West Indian 

 Species. The Bermuda Islands, by Angelo Heilprin, Philadelphia. 

 1889. 



