68 SOME BIRDS OF THE CANARY ISLANDS 



now flying on for a few yards and then alighting again. 

 This bird, Berthelot's Pipit, is quite one of the most dis- 

 tinctive birds of Tenerife, and indeed of all the islands, 

 and what the Blackcap and the Canary are to the more 

 wooded parts, the Caminero is to the rough, open 

 ground. It is met with more frequently, I think, than 

 any other bird in Tenerife, and will fly along in front of 

 the traveller, settling on a stone or a wall by the wayside, 

 and remaining just long enough for him to note the 

 dull-brown of the upper parts of its plumage, its striped 

 breast, and its delicate flesh-coloured legs. The bird is 

 interesting as being found only in the Canarian Archi- 

 pelago ; even in Fuerteventura it was to be observed 

 on ground which was not absolutely barren of all 

 vegetation. 



After descending one side of a deep wooded ravine 

 the path leads uphill, past orchards of pear trees in full 

 blossom, and so to the outskirts of Vilaflor. 



The weather was very hot during the first few days 

 we were at Vilaflor, afterwards it became cooler, with 

 occasional immersions in cloud. No fear of bad water 

 here ; one has only to go about a hundred yards above 

 the village to find the clear stream racing down in a 

 hollow wooden aqueduct, and there one is "top man," 

 always an enviable position in these islands, where the 

 chances of fever lurk below the villages. Above us are 

 no habitations, nothing but the rocks and pine trees. 

 Following up the path a little way above the village we 

 come to the great pine tree of Vilaflor, attaining I 

 am afraid to say what altitude, but it was certainly seven 

 feet in diameter, measured at the height of an average 

 man from the ground. Nearly all the trees are of 



