78 Dr. Heineken on Fringilla Canaria, &c. 
colour blueish, spotted with dark grey, size that of Pigeons’), and says 
that a boy once brought him one with five young ones, which he replaced 
in the nest, that they soon began to call, and that the old one immedi- 
ately made her appearance ; that in shooting he has frequently raised the 
old bird, and heard the young ones among the brushwood call to her ; 
and that he believes they hatch twice, if not thrice, in the course of the 
season. 
Whether the first visit of these birds to the island was accidental or 
voluntary, and whether their remaining stationary be from choice or 
necessity, it equally proves that migration is not the result of such a 
blind, brute instinct as some would have it to be; for allowing in this 
instance both the first arrival and subsequent detention to be the result of 
necessity, the same cannot be the case with the Swift, which is equally a 
fixture, with its more than ample requisites for the most extensive trans- 
portation. The Swallow and Snipe are said to be periodical visitors, and 
the reason both for the stationary habits of the former bird, and the mi- 
gratory of the latter two, is very readily to be found, I suspect, in one 
common cause, namely, food. The Woodcock finds its food about 
spring-heads, the margins of little mountain-rills, water-courses, &c. 
These are neither dried up here during our hottest summers, nor frozen 
in the severest winters. The Swift preys on insects universally, but 
throughout the summer on a moth which abounds so on our most parched 
and sterile sierras, that what with the insects and the birds the place 
seems all alive. The Snipe requires a tolerable quantity of poachy, 
moist, decomposing soil, for the production of its food, and this, even 
in the winter, is both scarce and very local, while at other times there is 
not a square yard in the whole island; and the Swallow requires insects 
which are found only over streams, and something approaching to rivers, 
which we make but a sorry figure in at the wettest of seasons, and are en- 
tirely without six months in the twelve. 
The Quail (Perdix Coturnix, Lath.,) isthe identical European spe- 
cies. It is stationary and not polygamous ; it pairs like the Partridge ; 
lays from fourteen to sixteen eggs ; has three or four broods in the sea- 
son ; and is found in bevies of a dozen or more, until the young are well 
