74 Canon Tristram — Notes on the 



dentally described and named this bird, without anywhere 

 giving a formal diagnosis, so that it has escaped general 

 notice. 



But to return to our ride. We skirted along the eastern 

 side of the Caldera till at the southern end we climbed its 

 rough broken walls for an hour, and descended by a gentle 

 slope upon the southern plain of the island. The course of 

 lava-streams could be easily traced in many directions. We 

 put up at the clean little town of Los Llanos, where is a 

 cigar-factory and some silk-weaving, and which was a con- 

 venient centre from which to work the inside of the Caldera. 

 Our first day's expedition, and that from dawn till after sunset, 

 was to the basin of the Caldera, which we entered over the 

 ridge we had climbed yesterday, but several miles lower 

 down, and then turned sharp to the north. The bottom of 

 the crater has a diameter of less than five miles and contains 

 several farms, the wine of which is in repute. But our 

 object was the forest, sadly wrecked and destroyed by waste- 

 ful and reckless cutting. Were it not that the Canary pine, 

 unlike any other species with which I am acquainted, sends 

 up shoots from the stump or root of every felled tree, which 

 become small timber in the course of a few years, I fear the 

 pine would soon become extinct in Palma. A mountain- 

 brook ran down the centre of the Caldera, but did not appear 

 to attract any bird save the Grey Wagtail. We had hoped 

 to find the new Tit in some numbers ; but though scattered 

 all over the inner sides of the Caldera, where there were 

 pines, the number of individuals was few, and the labour of 

 climbing these precipitous slopes with a gun was most ex- 

 hausting. Though geologically the most interesting, this 

 was our poorest ornithological day in Palma. There was 

 evidently no harvest to be reaped in the south, so we deter- 

 mined to move quarters to the N.W. end of the island, where 

 we heard of fine forests of pine facing the sea. This was a 

 14 hours' ride. We had to cross the ridge, still 1500 feet 

 high, which forms the southern wall of the channel through 

 which the lava poured, and then, crossing the bed, a width of 

 two miles, to mount again to the crest of the northern wall, 



