190 
Mr. A. Newton's two Days at Madeira. 
British as distinguished from Continental forms; and Mr. 
Wollaston has pointed out the probability of variation being 
dependent on the length of the period through which isolation 
has lasted. It is, accordingly, well to examine the evidence 
afforded by geology. Professor Edward Forbes supposed that 
the Madeiras and other Atlantic islands were the summits of a 
Miocene continent *; and Sir Charles Lyell has quite lately de¬ 
clared his belief that, “ waiving all such claims to antiquity, it is 
at least certain that, since the close of the newer Pliocene period, 
Madeira and Porto Santo have constituted two separate 
islands" f; while he further asserts that the naturalist is “ en¬ 
titled to assume the former union, within the post-pliocene 
period, of all the British isles with each other and with the 
continent" J. It, therefore, appears to me that the differences 
of variation, observable between the birds of the British islands 
and Madeira respectively and those of the Continent of Europe 
are exactly in accordance with these statements. 
The foregoing remarks I have made only in the hope of 
showing how much more remains to be done by the ornitho¬ 
logist in the Madeiras. I must now recount my own impres¬ 
sions, formed during my short stay of two days. On October 
20th, 1862,1 left Southampton, a passenger on board the Royal 
Mail steam-ship f Tamar.' We had a rough night of it going 
down channel, and the following morning found ourselves at 
anchor in Torbay, where our captain determined to wait till the 
spell of bad weather was over. How it rained, and how it blew, 
and how those on board managed to kill time, I need not here 
say. The scenery of that beautiful bay, to me so familiar, was 
generally obscured; but every now and then one obtained a 
glimpse of some well-known feature, bringing back lively and 
pleasurable reminiscences of more than ten years since. One 
agreeable circumstance of our three days' detention was the recog¬ 
nition of a party of old friends, whose acquaintance it had been 
my good fortune to make several years before in far distant lati¬ 
tudes. A company of about thirty Pomatorhine Skuas (Lestris 
* Geol. Survey of the United Kingdom, vol. i. pp. 348-350, and p. 400. 
t The Antiquity of Man, p. 444. * Ibid p. 277- 
