Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/198

Rh 180 M A D E I K A German, continue to spend the winter at Funchal, where there are numerous well-conducted hotels and boarding-houses, as well as furnished houses, with gardens, for hire in the neighbourhood, and where English and German physicians practise their profession. The island possesses one great advantage over most other places frequented by invalids in affording cool and comfortable summer quarters on the hills, so that they have no need to make a long journey for the purpose of escaping from the heat. Zoology. No species of land mammal is indigenous to the Madeiras. Some of the early voyagers indeed speak of wild goats and swine, but these animals must have escaped from confinement. The rabbit, and those pests the black rat, brown rat, and mouse, have been introduced. The first comers encountered seals, and this amphibious mammal (Monachus albivciiter) still lingers at the Dcsertas, but its early extinction is threatened, from the same cause that has brought about its extinction at the Canaries, the per sistent attacks of man. Amongst the thirty species of birds which breed in these islands are the kestrel, buzzard, and barn owl, the blackbird, redbreast, wagtail, goldfinch, ring sparrow, linnet, two swifts, three pigeons, the quail, red-legged partridge, woodcock, tern, herring gull, two petrels, and three puffins. Only one species is endemic, and that is a wren (Rcgulus madcirensis), but five other species are known elsewhere only at the Canaries. These are the green canary (Fringilla butyracea, the parent of the domesti cated yellow variety), a chaffinch (Fringilla tintillon), a swift (Cypsdus unicolor), a wood pigeon (Colnmba trocaz), and a petrel (Thalassidroma bulwcrii). There is also a local variety of the black cap, distinguishable from the common kind by the extension in the male of the cap to the shoulder. About seventy other species have been seen from time to time in Madeira, chiefly stragglers from the African coast, many of them coining with the Icstc wind. The only land reptile is a small lizard (Laccrta dugcsii), which is abundant and is very destructive to the grape crop. The logger head turtle (Caouanct carctta, Gray) is frequently captured, and is cooked for the table, but the soup is much inferior to that made from the green turtle of the West Indies. The only batrachian is a frog (Eana esculcnta) which has been introduced and has made its way from ravine to ravine. About 250 species of marine fishes taken at Madeira have been scientifically determined, the largest families being Scombridse with 35 species, the sharks with 24, the Sparidas with 15, the rays with 14, the Labridos with 13, the Godidse with 12, the eels with 12, the Pcrcidss with 11, and the Carangidas with 10. Many kinds, such as the mackerel, horse mackerel, groper, mullet, braise, &c., are caught in abundance, and afford a cheap article of diet to the people. Several species of tunny are taken plentifully in spring and summer, one of them sometimes attaining the weight of 300 ft&amp;gt;. The only freshwater fish is the common eel, which is found in one or two of the streams. (See lists and memoirs by R. T. Lowe and J. Y. Johnson, published by the Zoological Society of London.) According to the latest writer on the land mollusca of the Madeiras (T. V. Wollaston, Testctcca Atlantica, 1878), there have been found 158 species on the land, 6 inhabiting fresh water, and 7 littoral species, making a total of 171. A large majority of the land shells are considered to be peculiar, but naturalists do not agree as to the distinctness of the so-called species. Many of the species are variable in form or colour, and some have an extraordinary number of varieties. Of the land mollusca 91 species are assigned to the genus Helix, 31 to the genus Piqm, and 15 to the genus Acliatina (or Lovca). About 43 species are found both living and fossil in superficial deposits of calcareous sand in Madeira or Porto Santo. These deposits were assigned by Lyell to the Newer Pliocene period. Some 12 or 13 species have not been hitherto discovered alive. As to the marine testaceous mollusca it may be stated that between 300 and 400 species have been collected, but they have been only partially examined, and a large number of forms await identification. Pew of them are remarkable for size or colour, and a consider able number are very small. More than 100 species of Pohjzoa, (Bryozoa) have been collected, and amongst them are some highly interesting forms. The only order of insects which has been thoroughly examined is that of the Colcoptcra. By the persevering researches of the lata T. V. Wollaston the astonishing number of 695 species of beetles has been brought to light at the Madeiras (Inscda Madc.rcnsia, Cat. of Madciran Col., &c.). The proportion of endemic kinds is very large, and it is remarkable that 200 of them are either wingless or their wings are so poorly developed that they cannot fly, whilst 23 of the endemic genera have all their species in this condition. This fact, Mr Darwin thinks, may be mainly due to the action of natural selection combined with disuse, since those beetles which were much on the wing would incur the risk of being blown out into the sea, whilst those with less-developed wings had the best chance of surviving. With regard to the Lcpidoptcra, 11 or 12 species of butterflies have been seen, all of which belong to European genera. Some of the species are interesting as being geographical varieties of well-known types. Upwards of 100 moths have been collected, the majority of them being of a European stamp, but probably a fourth of the total number are peculiar to the Madeiran group. Thirty-seven species of Ncurop cra have been observed in Madeira, 12 of them being so far as is known peculiar. The bristle-footed worms of the coast have been studied by Pro fessor P. Langerhans, who has met with about 200 species, of which a large number were new to science. There are no modern coral reefs at these islands, but several species of stony and flexible corals have been collected, though none are of commercial value. There is, however, a white stony coral allied to the red coral of the Mediterranean which would be valuable as an article of trade if it could be obtained in sufficient quantity. Specimens of a rare and handsome red Paragorgia are to be seen in the British Museum and Liverpool Museum. Botany. The vegetation of these islands is strongly impressed with a South-European character. Many of the plants in the lower region have undoubtedly been introduced and naturalized since the Portuguese colonization. A large number of the remainder are found at the Canaries and the Azores, or in one of these groups, but nowhere else. Lastly, there are about a hundred plants which are peculiarly Madeiran, either as distinct species or as strongly marked varieties. The late Mr Lowe undertook a description of the vegeta tion in his Manual Flora of Madeira, but unfortunately this valu able work has been left unfinished. The flowering plants found truly wild belong to about 363 genera and 717 species, the mono cotyledons numbering 70 genera and 128 species, the dicotyledons 293 genera and 589 species. The three largest orders are the Composite, Lcyuminosx, and Graminaccse,. Forty-one species of ferns grow in Madeira, three of which are endemic species and six others belong to the peculiar flora of the North Atlantic islands. About 100 species of moss have been collected, and 47 species of Hcpaticie. A connexion between the flora of Madeira and that of the West Indies and tropical America has been inferred by the presence in the former of six ferns found nowhere in Europe or North Africa, but existing on the islands of the east coast of America or on the Isthmus of Panama. A further relationship to that continent is to be traced by the presence in Madeira of the beautiful ericaceous tree Clethra arborea, belonging to a genus which is otherwise wholly American, and of a Persca, a tree laurel, also an American genus. The dragon tree (Drac&na Draco) is almost extinct. Amongst the trees most worthy of note are four of the laurel order belonging to separate gen era, an Ardisia, Pittosporuin, Sidcroxylon, Notelxa, Rhamnus, and Myrica, a strange mixture of genera to be found on a small Atlantic island. Two heaths of arborescent growth and a whortleberry cover large tracts on the mountains. In some parts there is a belt of the Spanish chestnut about the height of 1500 feet. There is no indigenous pine tree as at the Canaries ; but large tracts on the hills have been planted with Pinus pinaster, from which the fuel of the inhabitants is mainly derived. A European juniper (/. Oxycedrus), growing to the height of 40 or 50 feet, was formerly abundant, but has been almost exterminated, as its scented wood is prized by the cabinet maker. Indeed the flora has been recklessly defaced by the un sparing hand of man. Several of the native trees and shrubs now grow only in situations which are nearly inaccessible, and some of the indigenous plants are of the greatest rarity. There are few- remains of the noble forests that once clothed the island, and these are daily becoming less. On the other hand, some plants of foreign origin have spread in a remarkable manner. Amongst these is the common cactus or prickly pear (02nmtia Tuna), which in many spots on the coast is sufficiently abundant to give a character to the landscape. As to Algx, the coast is too rocky and the sea too tmquiet for a luxuriant marine vegetation, consequently the species are few and poor. Geology. The hypothesis that the Madeiras during or since the middle part of the Tertiary epoch formed part of a large tract of land connecting the Canaries in the south and the Azores in the west with south-western Europe and northern Africa has been com pletely discredited by the discovery of the great depth of the sur rounding ocean. The origin of its existing fauna and flora, both of which must have been very different if such a connexion had ever been a fact, is now attributed to the chance arrival from Europe or Africa at distant intervals of the ancestors of the present species, the winds and waves, birds and insects, having been the means of transport. This immigration must have commenced at an early date if the aboriginal flora is partly traceable, as is asserted, to the Miocene flora of Europe, which has been found to contain genera now represented by species only living in the Atlantic islands and in America. In one of the northern ravines of Madeira some masses of hypcr- sthenite are exposed to view, and these are believed to belong to a diabase formation (better displayed in some of the Canary Islands than in Madeira) of much older date than the beds of basalt, tuff, &c. , constituting the rest of the island. It is therefore supposed that there existed at an ancient but unknown epoch an island or the foundation of an i.-land composed of diabase rocks, which, after being subjected to denudation, were overlaid by the materials thrown out jy volcanoes of Miocene or later times.