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Show 250 18LAND LIFE. (rAH.T 11. ---- been known that these rocks are all due to the wind, which blows up the fine calcareous sand, the product of the disintegration of coral, shells, serpulre, and other organisms, forming sand-hills forty and fifty feet high, which move gradually along, overwhelming the lower tracts of land behind them. These are consolidated by the percolation of rain-water, which dissolves some of the lime from the more porous tracts and deposits it lower down, filling every fissure with stalagmite. The Red Clay of Be?'?nudo,.-Besides the calcareous rocks there is found in many parts of the islands a layer of red earth or clay, containing about thirty per cent. of oxide of iron. This very closely resembles, both in colour and chemical composition, the red clay of the ocean floor, found widely spread in the Atlantic at depths of from 2,300 to 3,150 fathoms, and occurring abundantly all round Bermuda. It appears, therefore, at first sight, as if the ocean bed itself has been here raised to the surface, and a portion of its covering of red clay preserved; and this is the view adopted by Mr. Jones in his paper on the " Botany of Bermuda." He says, after giving the analysis: "This analysis tends to convince us that the deep chocolate-coloured red clay of the islands found in the lower levels, and from high-water mark some distance into the sea, originally came from the ocean floor, and that when by volcanic agency the Bermuda column was raised from the depths of the sea, its summit, most probably broken in outline, appeared above the surface covered with this red mud, which in the course of ages has but slightly changed its composition, and yet possesses sufficient evidence to prove its identity with that now lying contiguous to the base of the Bermuda column." But in his Guide to Ber?nuda Mr. Jones tells us that this same red earth has been found, two feet thick, under coral rock at a depth of forty-two feet below low-water mark, and that it "rested on a bed of compact calcareous sandstone." Nmv it is quite certain that this "calcareous sandstone" was never formed at the bottom of the deep ocean 700 miles from land ; and t~e occurrence of the red earth at different levels upon coralline sand rock is therefore more probably due to some process of decomposition of the rock itself, or of the minute orO'anisms which abound in the blown sand. The forthcominO0 ' vol~mes on CHAP. XJI.] BERMUDA. 257 the results of the vnt1t allenger expedition the difficulty. will probably clear up Zoology. of Berm1tda.-As mi extreme Isolation, these i l d ght be expected from their mammalia, frogs, or snakes s ~;h s ~ossess no indigenous land Professor Cope conside .t ere IS however one lizard wh. I . -rs o be dist' t f ' IC 1 sp.eCies, and which he has named p I~c rom any American said to be most nearly allied to p les~wdon longirostris. It is States, from which it differs in h. f~sc~atus of the south-eastern scales, the tail thicker and th avmg nearly ten more rows of ashy b rown a b ove, gr'e enish eb lmueu zzle lonOo' e r. . I n colour it is black-margined on th 'd beneath, With a white line b d e SI es and it se a un ant in the islands Th'. l' . ems to be tolerably as tll eonl Y vertebrate ani.m al IhS ' hIz ard .I S. esp eci. al lY m. teresting Birds.-Notwithst d' .w IC exhibits any peculiarity an mg Its small · 1 · remote position, a great number of . SI~~, ow altitude, and some in large numbers oth buds VISit Bermuda annually A. lto gether, over 180 s ' . ehrs only as acCI· d ental straO'glers ' tha n h a lf being wading paenCdie s . ave . been. recor d ed ' rathero more• not so much to be wond sdw immmoo· buds' wh ose presence is h w I.l e about eighty-five ere l adt a.s the yare great wanderers. h ard l y b e supposed capabalree fa nfl. .b uds' rna ny of which would' the 180 species however b o t thy:ng so great a distance. Of d an a great man' y more a' a ou 1rty hav e on1 Y b een seen once · f l db' re very rare . but ab t t ' o an Ird are recorded as tolerabl ' o~. wenty species half these appear to c y frequent VISitors, and nearly T orne every year. here are only ten species wh' h the island-eiO'ht land d IC are permanent residents on h b o ' an two water bird d f as een almost certainly introd s, a~ o these one as follows: uced. These resident birds are 1. Galeoscoptes carolinensis. (The Cat bir . coast of the United St t d.) Migrates along the east 2 . s·w zw· s~.a l is. (The Bl b. ad e s. . 3. Vi1·eo novreboracensis u(;h IrW.)h' Migrates along the east coast. th . e Ite-eyed green T't) M' e east coast. 1 · 1gratcs along 4. Pttsser domesticus. (The EnD"lish S , 5. Corvus americanus ('I'h A 5 . parrow.J ? Introduced. America. . e mencan Crow.) Common OYer all North s |