RETURN TO OROTAVA. 
87 
great mass of stagnant water. The causes of this partial 
motion of the clouds are probably very various ; we may 
suppose them to arise from some impulsion at a great dis- 
tance; from the slight inequalities of the soil, which reflects 
m , a greater or less degree the radiant heat ; from a difference 
ot temperature kept up bv some chemical action; or perhaps 
from a strong electric charge of the vesicular vapours. 
As we approached the town of Orotnva, we met great 
flocks of canaries.* These birds, well known in Europe, 
were in general uniformly green. Some, however, had a 
yellow tinge on their backs ; their note was the same as that 
of the tame canary. It is nevertheless remarked, that those 
which have been taken in the island of the Great Canary, and 
m the islet of Monte Clara, near Lancerota, have a louder 
and at the same time a more harmonious song. Ill every zone, 
among birds of the same species, each flock lias its peculiar 
note. . The yellow canaries are a variety, which has taken 
birth m Europe ; and those we saw in cages at Orotava and 
banta Cruz had been bought at, Cadiz, and in other ports ot 
Spam. But of all the birds of the Canary Islands, that which 
has the most heart-soothing song is unknown in Europe. 
It is the capirotc, which no effort lias succeeded in taming, 
so sacred to his soul is liberty. I have stood listening in ad- 
miration of his soft and mciodious warbling, in a garden at 
Orotava; but I have never seen him sufficiently near to as- 
certain to what family he belongs. As to the parrots, which 
were supposed fo have been seen at the period of captain 
Cook’s abode at Teneriffe, they never existed but in the 
narratives of a few travellers, who have copied from each 
other. Neither parrots nor monkeys inhabit the Canary 
Islands; and though in the New Continent the former 
migrate as far as North Carolina, I doubt whether in the 
Old they have ever been met with beyond the 2Sth degree 
if noi’tli latitude. 
Toward the close of day wo reached the port of Orotava, 
where we received the unexpected intelligence that the Pizarro 
would not set sail till the 24th or 25th. If we could have 
calculated on this delay, wc should either have lengthened 
* Fruigilla Canaria. La Caille relates, in the narrative of his voyage 
to tire Cape, that on Salvage Island these canaries are so abundant, that 
>ou cannot walk the-- in a certain season without breaking their eggs. 
