Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/420

394 16-bore was lying snug and safe in my cabin, ready to add to the Bermuda lists when called upon.

We left Gibraltar on the 12th, but did not land in Bermuda till March 30th, owing to a pleasant head-wind and somewhat limited powers of locomotion. My note-book was started next day,—our first on shore,—and was religiously kept up from that time till June 3rd, 1875, when I left again for English soil.

In this brief sketch, and in face of the heading assigned to it, I must needs confine myself to the birds alone; and it would be out of place were I to attempt any description of the islands themselves, their inhabitants, scenery, or productions.

Situated in lat. 32° 15' N., and long. 64° 51' W., six hundred miles or more from the great North American continent, and exposed to the full force of ever-varying gales, the long, narrow group of islands known as the "Bermudas" offer a harbour of refuge to many a weary, storm-beaten migrant on its passage north or south, and in consequence we find a great many genera of the North American avi-fauna represented in the visiting list. On this subject my friend Mr. J. Matthew Jones, of the Middle Temple, editor of 'The Naturalist in Bermuda' (1859), remarks—"That the Bermudas afford an excellent position from whence to observe the annual migration of many species of the feathered tribes of America cannot be doubted. Equidistant, or nearly so, from the shores of Nova Scotia, the United Slates, and the West Indian archipelago, they present, as it were, a casual resting-place to many birds while traversing the broad expanse of ocean which forms the eastern limit of their great line of flight."

Some species, as the American Golden Plover, American Snipe, Sora Rail, Night Hawk, Chordeiles virginianus, Yellowshanks, &c., seldom fail to appear every autumn, and may be set down as regular visitors, probably from the fact that their line of migration is direct from the north-eastern coasts of the continent to the West Indies and tropical South America; but, as will presently be seen, the great bulk of the recorded species are irregular or accidental visitors, whose migratory journeys are less ambitious, and who are blown off the mainland by unfavourable winds. That fresh species will from time to time be added to the present list is more than probable; in fact, it is possible that the whole avi-fauna of North America may eventually be recorded as Bermudian. When such diminutive flyers as the Ruby-throated Humming-bird, Trochilus