Page:Cornwall; Cambridge county geographies.djvu/44

 28 CORNWALL tions of soil, rainfall, temperature, and so forth. Cornwall presents unusual peculiarities in many ways, and we may now consider how far these have affected the creatures and plants within her borders. Firstly, Cornwall is remotely situated one of the extreme points of Western Europe and, whether the fact be dependent on food conditions or not, we find that there are several species of bird, common in other parts of England, which do not occur within the county, such as the nightingale, the wood warbler, garden warbler, redstart, and others. It would almost seem as if some of these species had not found their way thither since the re-peopling of the land by its present fauna, but were in gradual process of doing so, for there is no doubt that many birds rare or unknown in the Duchy half a century ago are now not uncommon, and appear to be steadily moving westward. That the starling is doing so is perhaps not remarkable, for this bird has enormously increased in numbers of late years and has spread every- where, even up into northern Scotland, but it is curious that birds like the stock-dove and all the woodpeckers and other non-gregarious sorts should show this tendency. Next, Cornwall is from its position constantly exposed to high winds, and to heavy gales in winter, combined with an unusually heavy rainfall and an " insular " climate tending to warmth and equableness. These factors, added to the granitic formation of much of its area, have made it a country of bleak moorland varied with thickly-wooded deep valleys dampness being the leading characteristic of both. With such physical conditions, then, we should