DESIUBT TRUMPETER BULLFINCH. 15 



deavoiired with its characteristic trumj)et-like voice to bring them back 

 again. Ordinarily it uses another note, which we cannot pronounce 

 otherwise than by the syllable 'ghe/ five or six times repeated with 

 vibrations. It lays four or five eggs of a sea-green colour, with reddish 

 brown spots and points arranged in a corona near the larger extremity. 

 It nests in the clefts of rocks." 



Doderlein remarks of this bird, "This is a very elegant species, 

 originally from Africa, which only appears in Italy as an accidental 

 passenger. As it is sometimes taken in Malta, it would not be im- 

 probable that some individuals might be taken on the adjacent coast 

 of Sicily. Malherbe certainly asserts that some arrive there, and I 

 saw a specimen in the collection of the University of Titania, which 

 appears to have been taken in the neighbourhood of that city. We 

 want more proof." 



Dr. C. BoUe's monograph is a model of this kind of descriptive 

 natural history, going into full particulars of all the habits and nidi- 

 fication of a most interesting bird, hitherto generally dismissed by 

 authors with the brief remark, " Ses tnoeurs, ses habitudes, son regime 

 et sa propagation sont inconnus.^^ 



In the early part of his account. Dr. BoUe reprobates the system of 

 name-making in modern days; the present bird being classed by 

 various authors as an Emheriza, a Fringilla, Pyrrhula, Carpodacus, 

 Erythrospiza, Enjthrothorax, Serinus, or Bitcanetes! 



I have placed it with the two last in the genus Carpodacus. 



It is truly, as Dr. Bolle remarks, a bird of the Sahara, He writes 

 about it as follows: — "Far beyond the other side of the fruitful coast- 

 line of jSTorth Africa, which borders southwards the Mediterranean Sea, 

 the cultivated fields of the Arabs are surrounded by a margin of desert, 

 where a new unexplored kingdom, with a scanty but strange world 

 of plants and animals, comes into view. Silence, as of the grave, 

 reigns supreme in the terrible Sahara, where the sea of sand has its 

 waves agitated by the poisonous breath of the Simoon. Through this 

 run the routes of the caravans, and its palm-shaded oases and wady's, 

 which during the falls of winter are flooded with water, and are 

 adorned with thickets of mimoste and tamarisks." 



It was in the two Canary Islands, Lanzarote and Fuertaventura, 

 which appear to have been divided from the Sahara by the sea, and 

 bear the character of scenery above described, that Dr. Bolle found 

 the Desert Trumpeter in great abundance, and where his observations 

 upon its habits were made. 



"Whoever," says Dr. Bolle, "wishes to know the dwelling-place of 

 P. githagiiiea, must not expect to follow me, as when I described the 



