302 Mr. R. Swinboe on Formosan Ornithology. 



This bird is also well known to tbe Indians of tbe interior, and 

 was no doubt originally procured from them by the Chinese. 

 The Chinese name for it is, I suspect, only a version of the name 

 it goes by among some of the hill-tribes. To the aborigines, 

 however, it is more than a mere fighting pet. It is their bird 

 of omen, and apparently the ruler of all their actions. In the 

 " Dictionai-y of the Favorlang Dialect of the Formosan Lan- 

 guage," by Gilbertus Happart, 1650 (translated by W. H. 

 Medhurst, 1840), it is mentioned as "Adam, a certain small 

 bird, less than a Sparrow ; variegated with a long tail ; from 

 whose cry future good or bad fortune may be presumed ; if it cries 

 out twice or four times, it betokens misfortune ; but if once, or 

 thrice, or five times, then good success; if anything above this, 

 it intimates a still greater blessing, according to the number of 

 cries." Again, in Ogilby^s 'Atlas Chinensis ' (vol. ii.), in some 

 notes afforded by " David Wright, a Scotsman," who spent 

 some years in Formosa during the occupation of the Dutch, it 

 is stated, with reference to the mode of warfare among the For- 

 mosans, that " Before they march into the field they supersti- 

 tiously observe the dreams which they had the night preceding, 

 and augur from the singing and flying of a certain small bird 

 called Aidak. If this bird meets them flying with a worm in 

 his bill, they take it for an infallible sign that they shall con- 

 quer their enemies. But if the bird flies from them, or pass by 

 them, they are so much disheartened by the ill-omen that they 

 return home, and will not engage until they have better signs." 

 Again, on the subject of the chase, " Before they go out they 

 tell to one another the dreams they had the preceding night, 

 and also neglect not augurial observations ; insomuch that if 

 the bird ' Aidak ' meet them, they count it a good omen. But 

 if it flies either on the right or left side of them, they put off the 

 sport till some other time." 



Most nations have their emblematic bird, beast, or reptile ; 

 and I now introduce to the readers of 'The Ibis' tbe emble- 

 matic bird of Formosa — small, it is true, but well typifying a 

 land of which Ogilby remarks " that each town being a republic, 

 they still have wars and are at difference one with another, town 

 against town, village against village, insomuch that peace never 



