42 EXCURSIONS IN MADEIRA 



nine o'clock in the morning, was 5 T, and De Saussure's liygrometer 

 marked 89°. The only birds I saw, were the fako cBsalon, (perhaps 

 a variety, from the difference between some parts of its plumage, 

 andCuvier's description of the species",) an an t- thrush °, (iny other u, 

 Illig',) the red-legged partridge, and a blackbird, only differing 

 from the European species in the colour of the beak, which was 

 dark brown, and merely edged with yellow. The woodcock 

 (scolopax rusticola, L.) is found in the mountains, and never quits 

 the island. My mule was sadly worried by the musca da serra, 

 which did not appear to me to differ from the hippobosca equina : the 

 guide insisted that it only fixed itself on the animal for warmth, and 

 did not suck the blood, begging me to look at its talons, which bore 

 two nails, much indented, but the proboscis and its sheaths were 

 very evident?. The Pico Kuivo faces the beginning of the descent 

 into the Coural ; the beetling rocks and broken peaks, over which 

 the clouds are sailing, seem to threaten to overwhelm us at every 

 step, and we involuntarily withdraw our eyes from these impending 

 ruins, to fix them with a shudder on the more starthng depths 

 immediately beneath us, and sometimes on both sides of the arti- 

 ficial wall, along which we frequently descend. There were 

 several picturesque streams and falls of water, but it wanted the 

 torrents, which follow the heavy rains, to complete the sublimity of 

 the scene. The road sometimes curves round like a bastion, and 



" The upper part of the bird was of a reddish brown, with dark brown horizontal 

 stripes ; the under, whitish with longitudinal blackish brown spots, diminishing in 

 number upon the thighs, the lower part of the belly was quite white, the envergure 

 measured two feet three inches, and from the end of the beak to the end of the tail 

 was one foot two inches. 



° The head, back, wings, and tail, were of an olive brown, the belly whitish ; the 

 throat, breast, and space between the eye and the beak, orange : it measured 51 inches 

 from the end of the beak to the end of the tail; the tarsus was \\ in. long, and the 

 tail 2 inches. 



p The antennae were short, bearing tubercles with a hair. 



