Notes on the Island of P alma. 67 



VII. — Notes on the Island of P alma in the Canary Group. 

 By H. B. Tristram, D.D., F.R.S. 



(Plate III.) 



Mr. Meade- Waldo concludes his interesting paper in the 

 last < Ibis/ on the " Birds of the Canary Islands/' by ex- 

 pressing his surprise that he has found so much to tell after 

 all that has been written upon them. I can only follow him 

 by the confession that I feel he has exhausted the subject, 

 and that were it not for the imperative order of our Editor, I 

 should not have ventured to take up my pen. The island of 

 Palma certainly claims especial notice at the hands of the 

 ornithologist, from its peculiar features, from what it does pos- 

 sess in the way of bird-life, and from what it does not possess. 

 The peculiarities of the avifauua of Fuerteventura and Lan- 

 zarote may be easily explained by the fact that they are, if 

 not geologically (for they are as purely volcanic in their 

 origin as the other members of the Canarian group), yet 

 biologically simply western outliers of the Great Sahara, 

 and have derived their forms of life from there across the 

 narrow sea which separates them from the African coast. 

 The comparatively low elevation of the volcanic rim which 

 girds each of these islands, and which rarely rises above 2000 

 feet, has forbidden the growth of the evergreen forest which 

 crowns, or has crowned, the heights of all the other islands 

 above 3500 feet. This has acted and reacted by attracting 

 the cloud -belt which always hangs on their north and north- 

 eastern sides, securing plentiful supplies of water, and 

 nourishing the forests, which thus attract and sustain a rich 

 variety of animal and vegetable life. Consequently in Fuerte- 

 ventura for certain, and in Lanzarote, so far as we know, 

 there is no trace of what we may term the peculiar Canarian 

 Avifauna. The Houbara Bustard, the Courser, the Trum- 

 peter Bullfinch, the Sandgrouse are all manifestly immigrants 

 from the Sahara. Mr. Meade- Waldo's new Chat (Pratin- 

 cola dacotice) is certainly, so far as we know, peculiar ; but 

 we must bear in mind the fact that the opposite coast of 



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