As April advances a new and striking bird-form arrives to adorn the higher sierras--the least observant can scarce miss this, the rock-thrush (_Monticola saxatilis_), conspicuous alike in plumage and actions; with clear blue head and chestnut breast, its colour-scheme includes a broad patch of white set in the centre of a dark back. The contrast is most effective, and, so far as we know, this "fashion" of a white back is unique among birds, unless indeed it be shared by Bonelli's eagle. The rock-thrush is also endowed with a lovely wild song, quite low and simple, but replete with a fine "high-tops" quality. By April 20 he yields to vernal impulses, and his courting is pretty to see; wheeling around on transparent pinions, he soars and sings the livelong day; at intervals, with collapsed wing, he drops like a stone to join his sober-hued mate among the rocks; a few picturesque poses, displaying all those flashing tints of orange and opal, and off he goes again to soar and sing once more. His cousin, the blue-thrush, has also a sweet song and a similar hovering flight, ending in a "drop act"; but the ascent is more vertical, while frequently he varies the descent and comes fluttering down in tree-pipit or butterfly-like style. Even the sober little blackchat now "shows off," perched on some boulder with quivering wings and tail spread fan-like over his back. Both these two last, being resident, nest much earlier than the migratory rock-thrush: the latter was building (in crevices of the rocks) by mid-April, but hardly lays before May. These sierras being only 3000 to 4000 feet, one misses here some of the alpine forms observed at higher altitudes. The tawny pipit, for example, a sandy-hued bird with dark eye-stripe and active wagtail-like gait, which was common on San Cristobal at 4500 feet in April, never showed up here at all; nor did any of the following species, all so characteristic of the higher ground: Blackstarts, woodlarks, rock-buntings, cole-and longtail-tits, and tree-creepers. The choughs, spotted woodpeckers, rock-thrushes, crag-martins, and wood-pigeons, though observed, were here very much scarcer. The lammergeyer, too, rarely descends here, and then only while in his smoke-black uniform of immaturity. THE PUERTA DE PALOMAS In May 1883, while returning from Ubrique, our horses fell lame owing to loss of shoes, and for four days and nights we were encamped in the pass known as the Puerta de Palomas. There is a tiny _ventorillo_, or wayside wine-shop, at the foot of the pass; but nights are warm in May, and we preferred the freedom of the open hill, where the strange growls made by the griffons at dawn, together with the awakening carol of the rock-thrush, formed our reveille each morning in that roofless bedroom amidst the boulders.