14 Canon H. B. Tristram — Ornithological 



happily suggested, as affording not only a balmy climate 

 bat perchance some objects of interest to the ornithologist. 

 A voyage of eight days from Liverpool brought us to Las 

 Palmas, the capital of Gran Canaria, We were delayed by 

 having encountered the worst storm of the season in the 

 chops of the Channel ; but after passing the latitude of 

 Gibraltar we had summer seas and gentle breezes. To the 

 eastward of Madeira we began to notice large flocks of 

 Shearwaters, chiefly Puffinus kuhlii, with other smaller 

 species, while the Gulls and Guillemots entirely disappeared. 

 Early one morning I noticed a number of a small Petrel for 

 an hour or two. These birds I at first took for Wilson's 

 Petrel, Oceanites oceanica, but soon saw that they had far 

 more white on the lower back and abdomen than that bird, 

 and that they were probably Procellaria marina, which has 

 more than once been taken off Canary. On examining our 

 place on the ship's chart I found that we were not more 

 than twenty miles east of the Salvages, a desert group of 

 waterless rocks, rarely visited, for there is no anchorage, but 

 which are known to be a favourite breeding-place of many 

 species of seafowl. I have little doubt but that these birds, 

 which I never saw again until near the same spot on the 

 return voyage, were preparing to breed on the Salvages. 



On Sunday morning, March 18, we sighted the distant 

 peak of Tenerife, and had a magnificent view of the island 

 as we steamed along its northern shore towards Gran 

 Canaria, which we reached soon after nightfall. One day 

 sufficed for hotel and other arrangements in that happy land, 

 where custom-houses are unknown and trade is literally 

 free. 



The first view of Gran Canaria from the roadstead of Las 

 Palmas is not attractive, the island, which is a solid, almost 

 circular, mass of volcanic rock, about thirty miles in diameter, 

 rising precipitously from the ocean depths to a height of 

 GOOO feet above the sea-level, and having no shore except 

 on the south side, where there is a low desert tract 

 covered with scoriae. Unlike its greater sister, Tenerife, 

 there is no one central peak, but a central mass of jagged 



