s very distinct from
any other known species. With these exceptions, most of the peculiar
Azorean species are closely allied to European plants, and are in several
cases little more than varieties of them. While therefore we may believe
that the larger part of the existing flora reached the islands since the
glacial epoch, a portion of it may be more ancient, as there is no doubt
that a majority of the species could withstand some lowering of
temperature; while in such a warm latitude and surrounded with sea, there
would always be many sunny and sheltered spots in which even tender plants
might flourish.

_Important Deduction from the Peculiarities of the Azorean Fauna and
Flora._--There is one conclusion to be drawn from the almost wholly
European character of the Azorean fauna and flora which deserves special
attention, namely, that the peopling of remote islands is not due so much
to ordinary or normal, as to extraordinary and exceptional causes. These
islands lie in the course of the south-westerly return trades and also of
the Gulf Stream, and we should therefore naturally expect that American
birds, insects, and plants would preponderate if they were {262} conveyed
by the regular winds and currents, which are both such as to prevent
European species from reaching the islands. But the violent storms to which
the Azores are liable blow from all points of the compass; and it is
evidently to these, combined with the greater proximity and more favourable
situation of the coasts of Europe and North Africa, that the presence of a
fauna and flora so decidedly European is to be traced.

The other North Atlantic Islands--Madeira, the Canaries, and the Cape de
Verdes--present analogous phenomena to those of the Azores, but with some
peculiarities dependent on their more southern position, their richer
vegetation, and perhaps their greater antiquity. These have been
sufficiently discussed in my _Geographical Distribution of Animals_ (Vol.
I. pp. 208-215); and as we are now dealing with what may be termed typical
examples of oceanic islands, for the purpose of illustrating the laws, and
solving the problems presented by the dispersal of animals, we will pass on
to other cases which have been less fully discussed in that work.

BERMUDA.

The Bermudas are a small group of low islands formed of coral, and blown
coral-sand consolidated into rock. They are situated in 32deg N. Lat.,
about 700 miles from North Carolina, and s