86 DESERT TRUMPETER BULLFINCH. 



of these birds. They live almost so completely in the 

 uninhabitable country around, that they are always joy- 

 fully 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 dcserto.' 



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 dis- 

 tricts they are rather shy, yet where, as in Handia and 

 nearly all the south of Fuertaventura, the silence and 

 solitude of the desert is unbroken, they are very con- 

 fiding, especially the young, which, when Ave 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 stronsr 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 

 constantly 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 roll about in 

 the dust like Sparrows. The breeding-time begins in 

 March, and like those of most true desert birds, the 



