N.B. In the numbers above given, named varieties are counted with the species.

The peculiarities of climate characterising the Channel Islands may be more clearly appreciated by a study of the above table than by any statement. Of the first four groups, which include a large natural division of plants, there are in all eight hundred and ninety species, of which only one hundred and fifty-nine are common to all the islands. As many as two hundred and thirtyeight or 27 per cent. of the species are, however, peculiar to Jersey, while only fifty-two species, or just 6 per cent., are absent in Jersey, but found in either Guernsey, Sark or Herm. These latter islands, in fact, show no essential difference in their phanerogamic flora, and may be looked upon as a group existing under very similar conditions. Alderney is distinct; and it possesses a much richer and more varied fauna than Sark, which equals it in area.

When, however, we pass to the consideration of special tribes characteristic of a moist, clouded climate, we see that Guernsey, though it has not more than half the area of Jersey, almost

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equals, or even exceeds that island in the number of species. Thus, of twenty-five known species of ferns found in the islands, twenty-one occur in Guernsey and only twenty in Jersey. Five species are found in Guernsey only, and two in Jersey only. The number and proportions of unnamed varieties would illustrate the same peculiarity in a manner yet more marked, and the richness of fern vegetation is certainly far greater in the smaller, damper, and cloudier, but more temperate island.

Similar evidence will no doubt be derived from the other cryptogamic plants when they shall be more completely known. So far as the lichens and fungi have been examined, they point in the same direction, and the mosses appear to do so too. At present, however, the lists of the species of these tribes are not sufficiently complete to justify any generalisation; and it seems impossible that there should be the excessive difference in them that the lists would indicate, when we consider the near vicinity of the islands and their small dimensions.

The botany of the Channel Islands is worthy of a closer comparative study than it has yet received, and would amply repay the philosophical naturalist, able to view in their mutual relations all the natural groups, and their bearing on physical geography and geology. For the present, these comparisons are merely suggested, but we shall return to them in another chapter.

A consideration of some very important facts concerning various foreign species of plants that readily grow and become almost naturalised in some of the islands, will tend yet further to illustrate the peculiarities of the island climates. These facts will be referred to when speaking of horticulture, in the fourth part of this work. It should, however, be observed here, that several foreign species are already so common in Jersey and Guernsey as to affect the general appearance of the vegetation; and the cultivation now going on in Sark will, perhaps, soon have the same effect in that island.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ANIMALS LIVING IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS OR IN THE ADJACENT SEAS.

THE Zoology, like the Botany of the Channel Islands, can only be properly understood by a consideration of each separate group, and an account of the actual state of positive information concerning each. Here, also, a number of active, intelligent naturalists have long been at work, but the published results are comparatively few; and the following pages include a very large amount of matter which will appear in type, in a collected form, for the first time. Each group of animals will be considered, and the authority named for the list of species given. The lists will be in alphabetical order of genera, as being convenient for reference. When confined to particular islands, the same letters as those used in the last chapter, will indicate the islands alluded to. Otherwise the species are found generally in all the islands or their surrounding seas. An asterisk (*) will denote very rare visitants where the fact is clearly known. A mark of interrogation (?) doubtful species; and a dagger (†) introduced species. It is right to state that, while some of the lists are probably almost complete, many of them are only first approxi mations, and some are given only for one or more of the islands when no definite information has been obtained from the others.

This list is not very large, and it will be observed that several species have been introduced by man. On the other hand, several species, once indigenous, have certainly disappeared. The red deer, and perhaps some other species of cervus, lived on the island a few centuries ago, and it is not unlikely that the wolf and wild cat accompanied them. The hare, now common enough in Guernsey, has been once lost, and the species replaced from England. The mole is absent in Guernsey, and the weasel in Alderney, Sark, and Herm. The black rat, so rare in England, is common in Alderney and Herm. It is present in Sark, to the exclusion of the brown rat, and the two species exist together in the small island of Brechou, immediately adjacent. It is nearly extinct in Guernsey, and quite so in Jersey. The fox is only found in Jersey. The rabbit is and seems always to have been exceedingly abundant. The hedgehog has been seen in Guernsey, but has probably been recently introduced.

Of the marine mammalia, several have been seen in the adjacent seas, as occasional visitors, and among these may be included a right whale. This species is named in the list, but the others can hardly be considered as belonging to the island fauna. The porpoise and the dolphin are not uncommon around Guernsey, often following the shoals of mackarel and other fish into shallow water. The grampus (phocana orca), which is not in

cluded in the list, must have visited these waters on its course up Channel. It is certainly rare, however, in these latitudes.

Of other quadrupeds, there are dogs of all the ordinary kinds in all the islands, but there is no special island breed. In Guernsey and Jersey, Newfoundland dogs have been introduced, and together with mastiffs, they afford good varieties. Of cats, it may be remarked that there are several examples of the tailless or manx variety in Sark, a fact not noticed by Mr. Bell, although he mentions their occurrence in Cornwall and Devonshire.

There is a breed of horses in the islands modified chiefly from the Breton and Normandy types, and remarkable for endurance and good temper. The island horned cattle are reremarkable; but it will be convenient to refer to them and other domesticated animals in the chapter on agriculture.

The subjoined illustration represents a picturesque ruin in Guernsey. It is a tradition, supported by documentary proof, that the red deer from Herm swam across from that island to the point of land on which the Vale Castle is built, up to a very recent time.