242 
ISLAND LIFE. 
[part II. 
Africa except three — the Atlantic chaffinch and the canary 
which inhabit Madeira and the 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 board 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, 
