Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/419



March, 1874, when ordered to the Bermudas to complete my tour of foreign service, I made diligent and most anxious enquiries about the birds likely to be found there, and I must say the answers I got from brother officers and others who were familiar with the islands were anything but satisfactory in an ornithological point of view. I was informed that birds were few and far between, with the exception of one or two common resident species, and a casual flock of plovers or waders in the autumn months. My ardour cooled to zero abruptly. I looked forward to the red, blue, black, and white birds of my informants, and the uncertain and erratic Plover, with a sigh of despair! Should I take a gun at all, to lie idle in the damp corrosive climate to which I was bound?

However, on board the good ship 'Severn'—a hired transport, which conveyed the company of Royal Engineers, to which I then belonged, across the Atlantic—I found some officers of H.M. 53rd Regiment returning to Bermuda from leave in England, one of whom (Capt. Rooke) was a great sportsman, and had shot and collected some birds during his previous residence in the "beautiful isle of the sea." His account was decidedly reassuring. He spoke of twenty or more species, and delighted my ears with the magic words— "Teal" and "Snipe." I was thankful then that my trusty