282 KEVIEW OF JAPANESE BIRDS. 



length of its tarsus is so much uuder the miuimum of all the allied 

 species, and so much out of proportion with the other measurements, 

 that it can be hardly more than an extreme individual aberration. 



A young specimen which Mr. P. L. Jouy collected at Fusan, Korea, 

 December 7, 1884 (Plate X, figs. 5, G), may be the same as P. oninor. 

 The outline of the feathering on the face agrees nearly with Bonaparte's 

 description, and the gular portion particularly corresponds exactly ; 

 for in the Korean bird the feathering runs in between the mandibular 

 rami forming a triangular apex 18'""^ high. Compared with three Jap- 

 anese P. major of apparently corresponding age the difference in the 

 outline of the feathering is quite striking. On the other hand, the di- 

 mensions and proportions are widely different from Schlegel's and 

 Bonaparte's bird, the tarsus especially being much longer. 



Since formulating the above I have received for examination a young 

 bird collected by Mr. Petersen, at Nagasaki, in December, 1880, and 

 kindly lent me by Professor Robert Collett, in Christianiti. It is some- 

 what large, but otherwise a perfect counterpart of Jouy's Korean ex- 

 ample. The feathered angle on the chin is identical ; the feathering 

 recedes at least equally far on the forehead, and the naked skin of the 

 face is abruptly blackish, except a light patch underneath each eye. It 

 is evidently of the same age as the above, or slightly older, judging 

 from the longer bill, and bears out the characters assigned to P. minor 

 beautifully. 



However, if we look at the appended tables of measurements, we 

 will find a bewildering individual variation, and all we can do is to 

 confess our profound ignorance and to ask information from those in 

 possession of more material. « 



I shall now devote a few remarks to the Spoonbills which Mr. Swin- 

 hoe collected in Formosa and called P. major, but which Seebohm has 

 afterwards identified with P. minor and P. regi^. Swinhoe obtained 

 four birds, of which he has given very full descriptions in the Ibis for 

 1864, pp. 3G4-370. 



The bird which he designates as Xo. 4 (Tamsuy Harbor, March 17) is 

 n male, and evidently /«//?/ adult, with the " entire plumage pure white,'" 

 ^' the occipital crest long, but not fully developed, being still partially 

 in quill"; "irides blood-red"; "sides of upper and lower mandibles 

 deeply corrugated transversely, the corrug?e being black"; " bare face- 

 skin black, with a bright yellow-ocher patch before the eye, extending 

 over the under lid and in a thin line over the upper lid." The outline 

 of the feathering on the head he describes as follows : '• Round the eye 

 bare. The plumes advance on the forehead to just over the middle of 

 the eye, form an obtuse angle towards the commissure in about the 

 same plane, and then recede well clear of the lower jaw, advancing 

 again on to the gular pouch .0 [15.2'""'] and terminating in its center in an 

 ^nndetermiued angle." 



No. 3, a 9 , same date and locality, and " paired with the foregoing," 

 is younger, with a smoother, lighter colored bill, occipital feathers only 



