_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 somewhat farther from the Bahama Islands, and are thus rather more favourably placed for receiving immigrants from America and its islands than the Azores are with respect to Europe. There are about 100 islands and islets in all, but their total area does not exceed fifty square miles. They are surrounded by reefs, some at a distance of thirty miles from the main group; and the discovery of a layer of earth with remains of cedar-trees forty-eight feet below the present high-water mark shows that the islands have once been more extensive and probably included the whole area now occupied by shoals and reefs.[54] Immediately beyond these reefs, {263} however, extends a very deep ocean, while about 450 miles distant in a south-east direction, the deepest part of the North Atlantic is reached, where soundings of 3,825 and 3,875 fathoms have been obtained. It is clear therefore that these islands are typically oceanic. [Illustration: MAP OF BERMUDA AND THE AMERICAN COAST.]