187 
Mr. A. Newton's two Days at Madeira. 
birds that, in the course of their periodical migrations, have gone 
astray; and it only requires the constant presence of a good 
watchman to secure these stragglers and record their occurrence. 
This I believe to be the chief reason for the otherwise unaccount¬ 
able richness of the ornithology of an isolated rock, like Heligo¬ 
land. Now, unfortunately, the Madeiras do not possess a Herr 
Gatke : as far as I am able to learn, they have not a single orni¬ 
thologist permanently resident and always on the look-out for a 
novelty. Ornithologists, and some of them good ones, have 
visited the island, nay, have passed perhaps many seasons there; 
but their powers of observation have often been limited by other 
causes. They have either been invalids themselves, like Hr. 
Heineken*, or have been the companions of invalids. Conse¬ 
quently, of the character of the casual additions to the Madeiran 
avifauna we are quite ignorant. On the other hand, I do not 
suppose that the number of species really inhabiting the islands 
is likely to be materially increased by any future observations. 
Still there is much in the Ornis of the Madeiras that merits 
or requires further elucidation. The facts that Scolopax 
rusticula is stationary all the year, and constantly, though in 
small numbers, breeds in latitude 33° S., and that Petronia 
stulta , departing from its customary habits of seclusion on the 
continent of Europe, is met with on trees in the centre of the 
town of Funchal, are such as, if they did not come to us on 
undoubted authority, would scarcely be credited. It is almost 
impossible that these should be the sole exceptional peculiarities 
of their kind in Madeiran ornithology. 
To British oologists the Madeiras have for some years been 
known as the locality whence they have obtained a plentiful 
supply of the eggs of various Procellariidse. These were, I 
believe, first imported into this country by my friend Hr. R. T. 
Frere; and it is very much to be regretted that we have so little 
information respecting the breeding-habits of the birds which 
produce them. Some of us who are afflicted with the mania for 
egg-collecting, and who are sceptical on every point pertaining 
* I have not seen the paper said to have been published by this natu¬ 
ralist in the f Edinburgh Journal of Science,’ 2nd ser. vol. i. p. 229, and 
am only acquainted with that in the f Zoological Journal,’ vol. v. pp. 70-79. 
o 2 
