242 



ISLAND LIFE. 



[part ir. 



Africa except three — -the Atlantic chaffinch and the canary 

 which inhabit Madeira and tlie Canary Islands, and the Azorean 

 bullfinch, which is peculiar to the islands we are considering. 



Origin of the Azorean Bird-fauna. — The questions we have 

 now before us are — -how did these eighteen species of birds first 

 reach the Azores, and how are we to explain the presence of a 

 single peculiar species while all the rest are identical with 

 European birds ? In order to answer them, let us first see what 

 stragglers now actually visit the Azores from the nearest con- 

 tinents. The four species given in Mr. Godman's list are the 

 kestrel, the oriole, the snow-bunting, and the hoopoe ; but he 

 also tells us that there are certainly others, and adds : Scarcely 

 a storm occurs in spring or autumn without bringing one or 

 more species foreign to the islands ; and I have frequently been 

 told that swallows, larks, grebes, and other species not referred 

 to here, are not uncommonly seen at those seasons of the year." 



We have, therefore, every reason to believe that the birds 

 which are now residents originated as stragglers, which occa- 

 sionally found a haven in these remote islands when driven out 

 to sea by storms. Some of them, no doubt, still often arrive 

 from the continent, but these cannot easily be distinguished as 

 new arrivals among those which are residents. Many facts men- 

 tioned by Mr. Godman show that this is the case. A barn-owl, 

 much exhausted, flew on boaxd a whaling-ship when 500 miles 

 S. W. of the Azores ; and even if it had come from Madeira it 

 must have travelled quite as far as from Portugal to the islands. 

 Mr. Godman also shot a single specimen of the wheatear in 

 Flores after a strong gale of wind, and as no one on the island 

 knew the bird, it was almost certainly a recent arrival. Sub- 

 sequently a few were found breeding in the old crater of Corvo, a 

 small adjacent island; and as the species is not found in any 

 other island of the group, we may infer that this bird is a 

 recent immigrant in process of establishing itself. 



Another fact which is almost conclusive in favour of the bird- 

 population having arrived as stragglers is, that they are most 

 abundant in the islands nearest to Europe and Africa. The 

 Azores consist of three divisions — an eastern, consisting of two 

 islands, St. Michael's and St. Mary's ; a central of five, Terceira, 



