Birds of the Canary Islands. 509 



were breeding w hen lie shot them. He also brought a female 

 Golden Oriole [Oriolus galbula), a Bee-eater {Merops api- 

 aster) and a Common Redstart [Ruticilla phcenicurus) . I 

 myself procured in Fuerteventura the White Wagtail {Mo- 

 tacilla alba), the Snipe [GaUinayo cmlestis), and the Peewit 

 [Vanellus cristatus). Last year I saw Bee-eaters in flocks. 

 Cypselus pallidus is abundant, but I did not see C. unicolor, 

 either this year or last. The Song Thrush was not uncommon 

 in the cactus-fields, feeding on the cochineal-bug, like the 

 Starling. 



Early in April I went over to La Palma, accompanied 

 by Canon Tristram, sailing across from Orotava in about 

 thirty hours. We went in a singularly filthy little schooner, 

 but we had it all to ourselves. Our trip was all too short, 

 but it was most enjoyable. It astonished me to find so much 

 difl'erence in the birds from those of Tenerife and Gomera, 

 both these islands being almost always in sight, one about 

 fifty and the other thirty miles distant. There is a great deal 

 of wood on the N.E. of La Palma, large stretches of laurel- 

 forests intersected by deep barrancos, in which the til-tree 

 flourishes. Above is the evergreen pine-forest, dreadfully 

 hacked about and ruined, splendid trees cut down and rotting, 

 it being impossible to get them away; very many most splendid 

 pines, however, still remain. The southern side, on which is 

 the famous crater, has no laurel, but a good deal of scattered 

 pine-forest, with here and there some good tracts. The first 

 day proved to me that my surmise of last year with regard 

 to Columba laurivora was correct, for at a spring where 

 some vifiatigo trees were growing we saw several. These 

 Pigeons, though coming into the trees to feed, settled about 

 in the scrub on tlie mountain-sides or on the ledges of preci- 

 pices, where ferns and rough herbage grew. The sight of my 

 first Columba laurivora in La Palma was very satisfactory, for 

 a German collector had been over in the island a week pre- 

 viously, and had told me that he had neither seen nor pro- 

 cured any Pigeons, and believed that only Columba livia was 

 found there. C. lawivora has much the same habits as in 

 Gomera, but is scarcer and more distributed ; it keeps to the 



