This statement recalls the cormorants, which are supposed to be meant by the sea crows, “corvi marinis” of the later maps. They would naturally flock about the submerged ledges and the wild shore of Corvo and may be held to suggest either the crow or the eagle, though not closely resembling either. Everywhere they are the scavengers of the deep seas. Edrisi mentions a legendary expedition sent by the “King of France” after these birds. It ended in disaster. The pictorial record on the Pizigani map of 1367[271] (Fig. 2), of Breton ships in great trouble with a dragon of the air and a kraken, or decapod, on the extreme western border of navigation, may conceivably refer to this experience. ANCIENT MEMORIALS But Corvo has even more ancient traditions and associations, Diodorus Siculus,[272] in the first century before the Christian era, wrote of a great Atlantic island, probably Madeira, which the Etrurians coveted during their period of sea power; but the Carthaginians, its first discoverers, prohibited them, wishing to keep it for their own uses. If the Etrurians were thus well informed concerning one island of these eastern Atlantic archipelagoes, it is a fair conjecture that they had visited the others. However this may be, it seems that the Carthaginians left memorials on Corvo. At least this is the most reasonable explanation of the extraordinary story repeated by Humboldt[273] in the “Examen Critique,” apparently with full faith in its main feature at least, notwithstanding the fascinating atmosphere of romance and wonder which hangs about the details. In the month of November, 1749, it appears, a violent storm shattered an edifice (presumably submerged) off the coast of Corvo, and the surf washed out of a vault pertaining to the building a broken vase still containing golden and copper coins. These were taken to a convent or monastery (probably on some neighboring island). Some of them were given away as curiosities, but nine were preserved and sent to a Father Flores at Madrid, who gave them to M. Podolyn. Some of them bore for design the full figure of a horse; others bore horses’ heads. Reproductions of the designs were published in the _Memoirs of the Gothenburg Royal Society_[274] and compared with those on coins in the collection of the Prince Royal of Denmark. It seems to be agreed that they were certainly Phoenician coins of North Africa, partly Carthaginian.