364 Letter from Mr. Swinhoe. 



Bill light cobalt ; skin round the eye violet-grey ; iris crim- 

 son-brown; legs leaden grey; soles and claws dingy. Head, 

 neck, wings, and tibial feathers black ; the rest of the plumage 

 of a fine cochineal red, paler on the tail. Length 9| in. ; wing 6^ ; 

 tail 4;^, somewhat rounded, of 12 feathers. Bill, along culmen, 

 1 in.; along edge of lower mandible, \\. Tarsi '9 in. 



The plumage of the first year is pale and dingy, the under 

 parts being more or less white, with a few black streaks. 



This bird is an inhabitant of the mountain-ranges of Formosa, 

 frequenting the jungly bush of the exalted valleys, and display- 

 ing its gaudy tints among the gigantic leafy boughs of the 

 far-famed haurus camphora, which towers at intervals among its 

 entangled fellows of the wood. In habits the Red Oriole nearly 

 approaches its allies of the yellow group, and feeds, like them, on 

 berries, chieHy those of figs. In summer it resorts to the 

 highest ranges, some of which are perennially covered with snow 

 (hence of its nesting I know nothing) ; in winter it returns to 

 the more accessible mountains bounding the Chinese territory. 

 Its notes are loud and harsh, as are those of the Yellow Oriole 

 {Oriolus chinensis), which, however, has somewhat of a loud and 

 not disagreeable »6ong. In Formosa, as in China, the Yellow 

 Oriole is a summer visitant, arriving in thousands, and literally 

 swarming in the bamboo-groves of the south. During this sea- 

 son it spreads itself throughout all the seaboard and champaign 

 country of Formosa. In China I have myself traced it as far 

 north as Pekin; and it ranges into Amoorland, according to 

 von Schreuk. I have no doubt that in its southern and brumal 

 migration it passes through Siam (whence I have received spe- 

 cimens from Sir R. Schomburgk), and disperses its bands 

 throughout the western side of the Bay of Bengal, where Blyth's 

 Black-naped Oriole (0. indicus) hails from. This species Blyth 

 himself now considers identical wath the Chinese bird. 



You must excuse me for digressing in this way from the sub- 

 ject of this letter; for, after all, my ideas regarding the two birds 

 might be expressed in a very few v\'ords, viz. that whereas Oriolus 

 chinensis alias indicus is a bird of the plains and migratory, Psa- 

 roj)holus ardcns is a mountainous species peculiar to Formosa, 

 resident on the island, and merely changing its home from a 



