Mr. R. Swinhoe on the Ornithology of Foochow. 257 



and other goods takes place amidst loud cries and gesticulations, 

 when we take our leave and repair up the hill to the pretty tier 

 of government houses occupied by the consular establishment, and 

 single out the residence of my esteemed friend, Mr. Holt. This 

 gentleman, though rather addicted to the otium cum dignitate of civi- 

 lized life, had not been entirely idle, but, assisted by a Chinese bird- 

 stuffer supplied by me, had managed to get together a pretty decent 

 collection of birds. The only novelty, however, was a Pericrocotus 

 of very flammeous tints, which I had before seen from Java, and I 

 think is described as P. brevirostris in Gould's 'Century.' This bird 

 was bought from a child who was playing with it on a stick. I was 

 pleased to find that a mercantile friend at Foochow was making 

 some progress in the pursuit of ornithology. He possessed a copy 

 of Morris's ' British Birds,' which he employed in identifying the 

 Chinese species; but, like all tyros, he had marked most of the Eng- 

 lish birds as Chinese. I endeavoured to give him some hints on the 

 subject, and I have great hopes of his usefulness in developing the 

 ornithology of Foochow. He told me of some Black Woodpeckers 

 he had seen in a tree close to his house, but that he had unfortu- 

 nately not been able to procure a specimen. He assured me that 

 they were not of the brown species allied to Brachyptei-nus badius of 

 Java, with which he was acquainted. This will therefore make the 

 fourth species of the group found about Foochow. One curious 

 bird, a stranger to me, was in his collection. It is a Wheatear, of 

 a dusky plumage, mottled with white; and I take it to be the young 

 of Saxicola leucura, which I see by ' Biyth's List' is also found in 

 Upper Hindostan. 



From the top of the Nantai Hill a fine view of the right and most 

 interesting half of the valley of the Min is obtained — large tracts of 

 cultivated paddy-land, divided here and there by green hills of 

 modest undulation, which are ornamented with clumps of tall 

 pines, banyans, and other umbrageous trees, and in places with 

 bush and copse. In the distance, the high range that bounds 

 the valley rises in varied tiers, surmounted oft with cone-shaped 

 peaks, and oft with rude rounded bluffs. In the summer of 1857 I 

 found the pine-groves abounding with numerous families of Gold- 

 crests {Reguldides proregulus) and Pai"us minor, and frequented 

 by occasional individuals of the handsome Grey Drongo [Dicrwus 



