PAEIJS PALMENSIS. 



(WHITE-BELLIED TITMOUSE.) 



Parus paimensis, Meade- Waldo, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 6, iii. p. 490 (1889). 



Figura unica. 

 Meade- Waldo, Ibis, 1889, pi. xvi. 



Ad. P. uttramarino similis, sed abdomine centraliter toto albo : secundariis et tectricibus alarum majoribus 

 albo apicatis, sicut in P. uttramarino. 



Adult Male (Palma, April 20th). Resembles P. ul.tr amarinus, but has the entire abdomen, excepting the 

 sides, pure white ; secondaries and wing-coverts tipped with white. Total length about 4 - 9 inches, 

 culmen 045, wing 2"5, tail 2 - 3, tarsus 075. 



Adult Female (Palma). Does not differ from the male. 



This interesting insular form of the Ultramarine Titmouse, differing only from that species in 

 having the whole centre of the abdomen pure white, is confined to the island of Palma, where 

 it is resident. All the information we have on record respecting this Titmouse is contained in 

 the notes published in ' The Ibis ' by its discoverer, Mr. E. G. Meade-Waldo, who writes (Ibis, 

 1889, p. 511) as follows: — "The day following I went out alone, and after shooting several of 

 the new Chaffinch and some Robins, which were of the pale colour of the Gomera Robin, but 

 had the colour on the breast less extended, I had the luck to fall in with a beautiful Tit, quite 

 different from P. teneriffce. I heard its voice first, and at once thought it something new, and 

 after some trouble, for it was in exceedingly thick laurels on an almost perpendicular barranco- 

 side, I shot it, and picked up a Tit like P. teneriffce, only larger and with the whole of the 

 underparts white. On comparing it with P. teneriffce I find it has a considerably longer tail 

 and longer tarsi, and invariably white tips to its wing-coverts, but less white on the wing-coverts 

 than the Fuerteventura Tit. . . . The first and last of Palma Tits I killed were the only two 

 I ever saw in the laurel-woods. I never saw any, or heard them, with these exceptions out 

 of the pines, and I think there is no doubt but that the pines are their home : they are 

 common enough in the pine-forests. I looked carefully about all villages, gardens, chestnut- 

 woods, and in all such places as P. teneriffce haunts, but found none. They had bred very early, 

 and had young on the wing on April 16th, even up at an elevation of 5000 feet. At the present 

 time, June 22nd, P. teneriffce had only just laid or is laying in the pines of Teneriffe, in the 

 valleys, however, the young have been on the wing some time. So, at similar elevations, the 

 Palma Tit had bred two months earlier than the Teneriffe Tit — not in one instance only, for I saw 

 three broods of young flying. Three or four seemed the number of young in each instance, and 

 P. teneriffce is much less prolific than our little Blue Tit, as I find five to be its full clutch, and 

 four eggs are as frequently laid as five, and in the high mountains three only are not uncommon." 



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