Birds of the Canary Islands. 7 



male, which I have at the present time. Woodcocks were 

 very abundant^ and so were Partridges wherever the ground 

 was sufficiently open. Tits, Goldcrests, &c. swarmed, and 

 I feel almost sure 1 saw a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker ; but 

 I had come for C. laurivora. Getting impatient at last, I 

 extracted from my guides that there were no '' Rabichi " up 

 in the mountains, but that they were in the Cordillera, be- 

 tween the mountains and the valley, and that there it was 

 too steep and dangerous for me to shoot, owing to the wet 

 weather, that the stones, loosened by the rains, were falling 

 in all directions, and that the ground fell away if walked 

 upon. The next morning at daybreak we started for the 

 Cordillera, having got over the objections of my companions 

 by an offer of a good reward for each "Rabichi'^ I killed. 

 To-day and henceforth I dispensed with my original guide, as 

 he had evidently thought that Pigeons were Pigeons, and 

 that C. ballii would do as well as C. laurivora. A capital 

 young fellow accompanied me, Luis by name, who was very 

 keen and knew every inch of the ground, and was also well 

 up in the birds of his island. He carried his gun and was a 

 very fair shot, and if there were many more like him the 

 Gomera Partridges would soon cease to be as abundant as 

 they are at present ; for a close time is unknown, and the 

 cock Partridge, as he sits on a rock uttering his Curlew-like 

 scream, while his mate is hatching close by, is a most 

 favourite object for a stalk. 



On the Cordillera, which was very steep indeed and 

 covered with thick heath and laurel-scrub and with many 

 precipices, the whole descending into the valley by a series 

 of terraces, I found C. laurivora fairly abundant, flying along 

 the face of the mountain in pairs and singly. Their light- 

 tipped tails were very conspicuous and looked white when 

 flying, giving them somewhat the appearance of gigantic 

 Turtle-Doves. Their flight was peculiar, quite unlike that 

 of any Pigeon I had ever seen, a soft flopping flight, fairly 

 fast, I found it exceedingly difficult to get good specimens, 

 as if shot Avhen flying along the mountain-side the birds 

 were mostly dashed to pieces by a fall of over 100 feet into 



