A claim has been set up by the Portuguese that Porto Santo (Holy Port) was first applied to this island by their rediscoverers of the next century in honor of their safe arrival after peril, but this is abundantly confuted by its presence on divers fourteenth-century maps, notably the Atlante Mediceo[57] of 1351. Also the Book of the Spanish Friar,[58] dating from about the middle of that century, contains in his enumeration of islands the words “another Desierta, another Lecname, another Puerto Santo.” It would seem to have been a familiar appellation about 1350 or earlier, and the suggestion naturally occurs that it may have originated in the tradition of the visit and blessing of the Irish saint. At any rate, the Portuguese, in the fifteenth-century rediscovery, can have had nothing to do with conferring it. ANIMAL AND BIRD NAMES OF ISLANDS Concerning such names as Canaria, Capraria, etc., which, by reason of other associations, appear oddly out of place in this group, the more general question is raised of the tendency to apply animal and bird names to Eastern Atlantic islands. Goat, rabbit, dog, falcon, dove, wolf, and crow were applied to various islands long before the Portuguese visited the Madeiras and Azores, finding them untenanted; these names long held their ground on the maps, and some of them are in use even now. The reason for their adoption piques one’s curiosity. If they could be taken as throwing any light on the fauna of these islands in 1350, they might also instruct us as to the probability of prior human occupancy or previous connection with the mainland. But, of course, in any significant instances some fancied resemblance of aspect may have suggested the name. MADEIRA Madeira, meaning island of the woods or forest island, is a direct Portuguese translation from the Italian “I. de Legname” of the Atlante Mediceo and various later maps, and of the “Lecname” of the unnamed Spanish friar who tells us he was born in 1305. It is sufficiently explained by the former condition of the island, the northern part of which is said to preserve still its abundant woodland. Perhaps the modern name of Madeira (or Madera) first appears on the map of Giraldi of 1426,[59] not very long after the rediscovery. But, with some cartographers, the Italian form of the name lingered on much later. [Illustration: FIG. 3--Section of the Beccario map of 1426 showing St. Brendan’s Islands. (From a photograph in the author’s possession.)] THE BECCARIO MAP OF 1426