132 Mr. R. Swinhoe— ^ Voice on 



however, to be laughed out of the idea of their identity, and so 

 did not compare the two togethei-. I suspect this will prove to 

 be another of our summer visitants that find winter-quarters in 

 the Indian archipelago. 



Allusion is made (p. 47) to the Microscelis amaurotis "of 

 China." It ocurs in Japan, whence it was originally described 

 in the ' Fauna Japonica,^ Has it ever been brought from 

 China ? 



I will conclude these remarks with a prayer that in future all 

 my past notes on Chinese Ornithology, in the * Ibis,^ be read in 

 conjunction with my "Catalogue of the Birds of China," 

 published in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society^ for 

 1863. This last embraces all the latest comparisons made, and 

 identifications worked out, by myself before leaving England. 



With regard to Flamingos, though not included in our 

 humble fauna, I should like to record one little fact, which 

 I had the pleasure of communicating some time since to 

 Mr. Darwin. An uncle of mine, who has been in his day a 

 great Indian sportsman, informed me that he once shot a 

 Flamingo, the legs of which were covered with barnacles 

 {Balani). Now the Flamingo is known to sit on her nest with 

 her legs dangling over the sides, and, I presume, continues to 

 sit, like some other birds, until the young are hatched, the 

 male feeding her during the period. Flamingoes are stated to 

 pile up their nests in shallow water. We may infer, then, that 

 the bird in question had built her nest in a shallow into which 

 the salt-water flowed, and that she continued to keep her legs 

 submerged in the briny liquid until the barnacles formed. I 

 know no other way of accounting for the phenomenon. The 

 truth of this solution might be tested by ascertaining how long 

 it usually takes for an object submerged in the sea to contract 

 barnacles, and to compare this when ascertained with the term 

 of the Flamingo's incubation. 



In Mr. Tristram's "Ornithology of Palestine" (Ibis, 1865, 

 p. 77) is the remark that species "which resort to the highest 

 latitudes for nidification also pass further than others to the 

 southward in winter." This my experience in Eastern Asia 

 quite enables me to confirm, and, to some extent, the axiom 



