Birds of the Canary Islands. 507 



The Linnet of Fuerteventura [Linota cannabina) also differs 

 greatly from that of the other islands. While those of 

 Canary, Tenerife, Gomera, La Palma, and, as Canon Tristram 

 writes to me, of Lanzerote, are peculiarly brilliant in colour, 

 the Linnet of Fuerteventura is very pale, wanting in nearly 

 every instance any rose-colour whatever. Only in one out 

 of ten breeding males that I skinned is there a touch of 

 colour, and in that it is very pale. 



The Tit {Parus ultramarinus) difiFers from Parus teneriffa in 

 being much smaller and paler blue in colour, and in having a 

 broad white margin to the greater wing-coverts, all the secon- 

 daries being tipped with white, and in having the white 

 space on the forehead wider. In the large series of Parus 

 teneriffa that I have, and in the hundreds that I have observed 

 in Tenerife within a yard or two, I have never seen one with 

 white-edged wing-coverts. The Fuerteventura Tit is a dis- 

 tinctly different form to the Parus teneriffce. 



Flocks of Common Starlings frequented the cactus-fields 

 in the villages, where they lived on tlie cochineal-bug. 



Sylvia melanocephala was common in the tamarisks which 

 grew in some of the barrancos. Their nests were usually 

 placed at some height from the ground, as if to avoid a sudden 

 flood ; there had been one or two very heavy rains early this 

 spring. The eggs were of quite a different type from those 

 laid in Tenerife, being white, sparsely dotted with two shades 

 of olive. Three nests contained three eggs or three young, 

 in one instance only one young one, and two contained one 

 incubated egg each, so that they do not seem very prolific. 

 Sylvia conspicillata lays full clutches of from four to six 

 eggs. 



Two pairs of Plovers that frequented a part of the plain 

 where there is a salt-stream puzzled me. They were like 

 Charadrius hiaticula, but were much larger, and appeared to 

 have longer tails^ and had a very different voice. They were 

 very wild, and rose with a very powerful flight, circling round 

 and whistling. I never could get within shot, but had good 

 looks at them through my glasses ; the beak was orange with 

 a black tip, and the legs were greenish. From seeing them 



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