Dr. Heineken on Fringilla Canaria, &c. 77 
melody made upon the traveller, I have very little doubt about its iden- 
tity with our Tinto negro, and consequently with the European Black- 
cap; for of course the assertion that he knew it not, even of a Humboldt, 
when following the confession that he ‘had never seen it near,’’ is 
worth nothing. Here it is most easily tamed, and becomes more docile 
than any other cage-bird; but seldom attains to the melody which it 
pours out when at large, and is always unhealthy in confinement. The 
Jatter arises from the custom of feeding it (an insectivorous bird) entirely 
on fruit, and bread and milk; and it is for this matter o’fact reason, I 
fear, and not the more elevated one of “ liberty bemg sacred to his soul !’” 
(‘Personal Narrative’) that it dies at Teneriffe. 
The Woodcock, /Scolopar rusticola, Linn.,) which is admitted by all 
not even to be a variety of the European species, is permanent, and 
breeds here; and had not the latter fact, like that of the variety of the 
Tinto negro, been occasionally called in question, I should have rested 
satisfied with its notoriety. Two years ago I sawa bird just fledged, which 
Twas told had been taken from a Woodcock’s nest. It answered to all 
the essential characters of the species, but as I never before saw so-young 
a bird of any of the genus, and as the only reason given for the identity 
of the nest was simply “‘ because it was so,” the valeat quantum of this 
evidence will not, perhaps, amount to much, ‘although it more than sa- 
tisfied me. Woodcocks are brought about for sale as commonly in July 
as in December.* There is no sudden increase or decrease in their num- 
bers. Forty years ago they were unknown here. One was then acci- 
dentally met with in the South, and afterwards abundance in the North 
of the island, where they were for many years plentiful, and since that 
time have never disappeared. But the best evidence is that of an old 
sportsman, who has in several instances found nests with three eggs (the 
* There areno game laws, All descriptions of animals not domesticated 
are looked upon by the cultivators as “ fruges consumere nati,’’? and knocked 
on the head in all ways, and at all seasons, without ceremony: the wonder 
therefore is, not that we have:so few, but that any should remain in sucha 
purgatory. Nightingales were attempted to be introduced’some thirty years 
ago, and heavenly they would have been in such a climate: it is said not to 
have suited them, but I shrewdly suspect they were all made into pies. 
