Notes on Gran Canariu. 23 



thriving trade is carried ou at the Port with the passengers 

 of the African and New Zealand steamers in yellow Canaries, 

 which fetch a fancy price, as being tlie " real thing/' I w^as 

 amused to find these birds priced at from 3 to 5 dollars, 

 while the real native, perfectly tame and singing as well as 

 the other, could be had for half a dollar. 



My only other capture of interest on this my first day^'s 

 outing was Cypselus imicolor, a flock of which graceful bird 

 were skimming low as the evening set in. This Swift has a 

 different flight from that of C. apus, more gliding, and is 

 very silent on the wing. Parties may be seen from sunrise 

 to sunset systematically hunting, generally sweeping laterally 

 over the upland plains or along the face of the steeper clifls, 

 and returning in about an hour to the same spot. At mid- 

 day I have noticed them at the height of 5000 feet, but 

 towards evening they descend, though rarely to the coast- 

 line. Their roosting- and nesting-places are in clifls, gene- 

 rally from one to two thousand feet above the sea. In this 

 respect they diflPer from C. pallidus, which is also very 

 numerous, but which particularly aff'ects the coast-line, and 

 which I never saw at any great height inland. So far as 

 I could ascertain, both species are permanent residents, 

 Cypselus unicolor certainly is so. 



Such were my captures for my first day's work in Gran 

 Canaria ; and though it cannot be looked on as a " birdy " 

 country, I had no reason to be dissatisfied with a bag which 

 it required a long day^s work to skin, and which added three 

 local species to my collection. 



We returned to Las Palmas the next day by a mountain- 

 path ou foot, a seventeen-miles walk, with fine rugged scenery, 

 grand in spite of the absence of forest, and passing many of 

 the cave-dwellings of the ancient Guanches, the aboriginal 

 and civilized inhabitants who were dispossessed and too often 

 brutally slaughtered by the Spaniards. 



I added a few specimens to my bag on the way, among 

 them the Short-toed Lark {Alauda brachydactyla), which 

 occurred on the barest and most rugged mountain-sides, and 

 which is one of the few birds inhabiting Gran Canaria, but 



