37 
Countless willow wrens [Sylvia trochilus) enjoy Gibraltar’s sunny 
climate, wintering among the cactus plants ; and I often heard the 
Sardinian warbler’s [Sylvia melarwc.opliala) bantering note, and 
detected the black head of this lively bird clinging to a cactus 
stem. In fact, these hardy warblers enliven every hedgerow. In 
several I noticed a brown spot in the region of the chin, which I 
at first thought was a stain from contact with the red flowers of 
the cactus, but which Major Irby informs me is really caused by 
tlie berries of the popper tree. With the Sardinian warblers were 
many blackcaps, to which they bear a general resemblance, as also 
to the Orphean warbler, [Sylvia orphea,) and I observed the same 
peculiar spot on some of these. On the rough stony ground I saAv 
the white wagtail, [Motacilla alha,) and the crested lark, [Galerula 
criatata,) and at the rock’s summit that rare bird, the Alpine 
Accentor, [Accentor ul pinna,) and several crag martins, [Cofyle 
iitpesfna,) the most stay-at-liome of all the hirundines. The 
Accentor, when first noticed, was on the outside of the signal 
station, clinging within a few feet of me to the ma.sonry. It was 
})erfectly tamo. I observed Kentish plovers, [Chamdrins canfi- 
antut,) in troops of ten or twenty, scampering nimbly along the 
sandy isthmus which separates the rock from the mainland. A 
dog disturbed a small covey of Ilarbary partridges [Perdix p>cirosa) 
near the old ^Moorish tower, and I saw with surprise that on the 
wing this species far more nearly resembles the grey [Perdix 
cinera) than the red leg [Perdix rnfa.) 
On the 23ril I left for Oran in a French packet, which was to 
touch at Malixga. I noted a dark Lestris-looking bird among 
some gulls, and many a restless flock of what I supposed to be the 
Manx shearwater, but I d' 1 not on that voyage see any storm 
petrels, or Cinereous shearwaters, [Pn^nus cinerens.) 
To a person setting foot on a new continent for the first time, 
everything seems novel, and when at length on the 25th of 
January, 1870, I disembarked at Oran, capital of that province, 
my expectations were at a high pitch. I took the first steamer to 
Algiers, as travelling by la mi is expensive and slow. Ten days 
passed rapidly with me at that town. In the morning I generally 
went out with my gun, and among other birds I was fortunate 
enough to shoot a hooded shrike, [Teleplwnus tschayra.) In the 
vegetable and poultry market I saw a concourse of birds. It 
