DESERT TRUMPETER BULLFINCH. 17 



"We should soon lose it if its voice, which is one of its most 

 striking peculiarities, did not guide us to it. Listen! A note like 

 that of a small trumpet trembles through the air, and vibrates con- 

 tinuously; and if we I've very attentive we shall hear just before and 

 just after it two gentle light notes ringing like silver bells through 

 the still desert, or the almost imperceptible, chords of an harmonium 

 played by unseen hands. Again it changes, and this time its notes 

 resemble the deej) croak of the green frog of the Canaries, but less 

 coarse, hastily repeated one after another, and which the little bird 

 will itself answer with almost similar but weaker sounds, like a ven- 

 triloquist, as though they came from the far distance. Nothing is more 

 difficult than to describe in language the notes of birds. They must 

 be heard to be appreciated, and no one would expect to hear so 

 remarkable a song from a bird in such a locality. The above trumpet- 

 like tones, often ending in a succession of crowing and humming, 

 distinguishes the habitat of these birds. They live almost so completely 

 in the uninhabitable country around, that they are always joyfully 

 welcome, and listened for attentively when silent. They are as the 

 melancholy voices of the desert^ or as the Djuns of the solitude. 

 ' Vox clamantis in deserto.' 



"The Desert Trumpeter does not appear frequently on the steep 

 rocky hills, at least I have only once met with it in such a situation, 

 and that was in April, 1852. It is much more partial to the black 

 lava stream of the desert, which, full of gaping rents and chasms, 

 hardly permits a blade of grass to become green. It never settles on 

 a tree or bush like the Stonechat. In inhabited districts they are 

 rather shy, yet where, as in Handia and nearly all the south of Fuer- 

 taventura, the silence and solitude of the desert is unbroken, they 

 are very confiding, especially the young, which, when we meet with 

 them unexpectedly seated on a stone, will peer with their little brilliant 

 eyes quite into one's face. 



"They feed entirely, or almost so, on the seeds either of grasses, 

 which are found like a mealy kind of bread in their stomachs when 

 killed, or the oily seeds of composite and cruciferous plants, which 

 they shell like other Finches, by moving them most carefully backwards 

 and forwards between the mandibles of their strong beak. They will 

 also eat tender young leaves. They cannot long dispense with water, 

 and often must fly some miles daily to get it. Their presence in the 

 desert is always a good omen for the thirsty traveller. I have con- 

 stantly seen them flying to drink in flocks. They drink much at a 

 time in long draughts, between which they lift up their heads. After 

 drinking they are very fond of bathing. I have never seen them 



VOJ.. IV. D 



