78 Dr. Heineken on Fringilla Canaria, bic. 



colour blueish, spotted with dark grey, size that of Pigeons'), and says 

 that a boy once brought him one with five young ones, which he replaced 

 in the nest, that they soon began to call, and that the old one immedi- 

 ately made her appearance ; that in shooting he has frequently raised the 

 old bird, and heard the young ones among the brushwood call to her ; 

 and that he believes they hatch twice, if not thrice, in the course of the 

 season. 



Whether the first visit of these birds to the island was accidental or 

 voluntary, and whether their remaining stationary be from choice or 

 necessity, it equally proves that migration is not the result of such a 

 blind, brute instinct as some would have it to be ; for allowing in this 

 instance both the first arrival and subsequent detention to be the result of 

 necessity, the same cannot be the case with the Swift, which is equally a 

 fixture, vnth its more than ample requisites for the most extensive trans- 

 portation. The Swallow and Snipe are said to be periodical visitors, and 

 the reason both for the stationary habits of the former bird, and the mi- 

 gratory of the latter two, is very readily to be found, I suspect, in one 

 common cause, namely, food. The Woodcock finds its food about 

 spring-heads, the margins of little mountain-rills, vrater-courses, &c. 

 These are neither dried up here during our hottest summers, nor frozen 

 in the severest winters. The Swift preys on insects universally, but 

 throughout the summer on a moth which abounds so on our most parched 

 and sterile sierras, that what with the insects and the birds the place 

 seems all alive. The Snipe requires a tolerable quantity of poachy, 

 moist, decomposing soil, for the production of its food, and this, even 

 in the winter, is both scarce and very local, while at other times there is 

 not a square yard in the whole island ; and the Swallow requires insects 

 which are found only over streams, and something approaching to rivers, 

 which we make but a sorry figure in at the wettest of seasons, and are en- 

 tirely without six months in the twelve. 



The Quail fPerdix Coturnix, Lath.,) is the identical European spe- 

 cies. It is stationary and not polygamous ; it pairs like the Partridge ; 

 lays from fourteen to sixteen eggs ; has three or four broods in the sea- 

 son ; and is found in bevies of a dozen or more, until the young are well 



