16 BESEET TBUMPETEB BULLFINCH. 



wild Canary bird, into the glades of the Hesperides, through hollows 

 rich in flowers, and bordered with woods of laurel. The Fortunate 

 Islands are in no way similar to the evergreen colour in which they 

 appear to travellers who pass these land-marks of navigation in the 

 height of summer. 



"The Desert Trumpeter is found most plentifully in Lanzarote and 

 Fuertaventura, and most sparingly in the great Canary Island. I found 

 it in fact spread over the whole eastern part of the Canary Islands, 

 and have reason to believe that it may inhabit the more western parts 

 also. 



"On the 1st. of April, 1856, I found it in an excursion to Caldeca 

 von Bandama, on the high road which leads from Ciudad de las 

 Palmas to the Vegas, and welcomed it joyfully as an old acquaintance 

 one comes upon unexpectedly. It is seen, but less plentifully, in the 

 neighbourhood of the principal town, but at the time of migration it 

 appears in great numbers in the harbour, Puerta de la Luz. I have 

 also observed it in the districts of Jinamar, Carrizal, and Juan Grande, 

 and nowhere more abundantly than in Arguineguin, where it frequents 

 in flocks the tombs and ruins of a town which at one time had been 

 plundered by the Spaniards, which now covers a cape or promontory 

 with rocks and grottoes, and fig-trees in the background, and com- 

 mands an incomparable panorama over the sea towards the Peak of 

 Tenerifi^e. 



"It also breeds in the islands of the western group, since the thick 

 growth of wood has driven it back there, but it has not been seen 

 hitherto on Teneriffe, Gomera, Palma, or Ferro." 



"The country inhabited by the Desert Trumpeter must above all 

 things be without trees, and in the hot regions of the sunny coast. 

 It prefers stony places, where in the noon-day the wind trembles over 

 burning stones, and by the glimmer and reflected light of which the 

 traveller is almost blinded. Only a little grass grows in summer between 

 the parched and bleached yellow stones; and here and there at wide 

 intervals the low bushes of the taybayba, f Euphorbia halsamifera,) 

 or the thorny prenanthes, only eaten by the dromedary, spring up. 

 Here the Trumpeter lives — a Bullfinch with the manners of a Stone- 

 chat. It is always found in sociable little groups, when the cares of 

 the breeding-season do not keep it solitary. The cheerful little bird 

 dances from stone to stone, or glides about near the ground, but 

 seldom can our sight follow it far into the landscape, for the reddish 

 grey feathers of the old bird mix as closely with the colours of the 

 stones and leafless stems and twigs of Eaphorhia, as the isabelle of the 

 young does with the pale yellow of the sand or chalk. 



