404 Mr. R. Svvinhoe on Amoy Ornithology. 



black. Forehead at base of bill orange-yellow tinged with buff; 

 orange-green to middle of crown. Lower parts deep yellow 

 tinged with green. Tibial feathers greenish-grey. Middle of 

 belly pure white. Occiput, upper back, and scapulars ashy- 

 grey, indistinctly marked with green on scapulars and back. 

 Rump golden -green. Lores shaded with a little black. Bill 

 large, much hooked at tip, black. Some of the tertiary quills 

 with oblong spots of golden on edges of outer webs. Length 

 of skin 7*5 in., wing 4 in., tail 4 in. This does not answer to 

 T)r. .Tcrdon's female, but may be the young male of P. speciosus, 

 which he does not describe. The male tailless specimen I before 

 procured at Foochow I identified in England with the true P. 

 spccioFsus in the East-India Museum. 



I see that Mr. Gould (P. Z. S. 1865, p. 665) has made a new 

 species out of the Chinese pied Henicurus, the chief peculiarity 

 of his H. sinensis being the less extent of white on the forehead. 

 I have three specimens from Foochow varying a good deal in the 

 expansion of this white. I carefully compared my skins with 

 those in the East-India Museum of true //. speciosus, Horsfield ; 

 and though anxious to find a difference, I could discover none. 

 1 suspect that the less or greater extent of frontal white is a 

 sexual difference. Our grey species also seems identical with 

 the Indian H. schistaceus. 



Feb. 20th. — The Painted Snipe, Rhynchaa sinensis, found by 

 a friend abundant on some marshes up the river. He showed 

 me several specimens that he had shot. Rock-Thrushes, Petro- 

 cincla manillensis, fighting and singing about the green on our 

 hill. Two males fight while the female sits passively by. The 

 combatants ruffle their feathers, stretch their necks, and droop 

 their wings, occasionally jerking up the tail. 



March 9th. — Returned from a week's visit to the interior with 

 two birds new to my China list. The first is what looks at first 

 sight greatly like a melanine form of Lanius schach, L. I only 

 came across a single specimen, sitting on the top of a bush in a 

 -marshy field. It was moving its tail up and down, and from 

 side to side, but uttered no cry. I took it for a peculiar species 

 of Dicrurus. It was not known to the natives. The place 

 where it occurred was about fifty miles north-west of Amoy. 



