1920.] Birds of the Canary Islands. 329 



some form of Isabelline desert Wheatear which at present 

 bears some other name." 



As it is twenty-five years since Mr. Meade-Waldo pub- 

 lished his last list^ he may have omitted the Isabelline 

 Wheatear from his final list with intent and the fact have 

 escaped his memory after so long a period. 



The bird is not mentioned by Cabrera in the list of his 

 birds from the islands, and on the above evidence I do not 

 feel justified in including the species amongst the authentic 

 visitors. 



Range. The Isabelline Wheatear breeds in Asia and 

 winters partly in Egypt and eastern Africa and in India. 

 It is very unlikely to occur in the Canary Islands again. 



Family PiciD^. 



? Dryobates minor. Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. 



Picus minor Linn. Syst. Nat. 10th ed. 1758, p. 114 — Type 

 locality : Sweden. 



The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is first recorded by Busto 

 (Topografia medica, 1864, p. 104) almost certainly in error. 



Meade-Waldo (Ibis, 1889, p. 7) wi'ote of a visit to Gomera 

 in 1888, " I feel almost sure I saw a Lesser Spotted Wood- 

 pecker,'"' 



Cabrera included it (Catalogo, 1893, p. 35) as a species 

 met with accidentally in the Canaries on the authority of 

 Busto and Meade- Waldo. 



Polatzek remarked (Orn. Jahrb. 1909, p. 121) that if 

 D. minor occurred in Gomera he would certainly have seen 

 it, but the only Woodpecker which he thought he saw there 

 was larger than this species. 



When two such observers as Meade-Waldo and Polatzek 

 both think that they saw a Spotted Woodpeckeuof some form 

 in the island of Gomera, we cannot entirely dismiss the records 

 as valueless and place them in Appendix B. There is no 

 Woodpecker of any species known to inhabit this island, but 

 any ornithologist visiting Gomera should keep a particularly 

 sharp look out in the hope that he may solve the problem 

 of the mystic race. It is extremely unlikely that if a 



