Mr. R. Swinhoe ow Formosan Ornithology. 203 



vance of the colonist, who clears the hills of the forest and 

 exterminates the beasts of the chase. But another and perhaps 

 more effectual cause of their rapid diminution is the constant 

 feuds carried on by adjacent tribes, chiefly with a view to try 

 their skill at arms, and prove the prowess of their youth, who 

 are compelled, by their laws, to present the lady of their choice 

 with the head of an enemy before they can claim her for a bride. 

 Another destructive cause is the law for preventing women from 

 becoming mothers till they are thirty-six, all previous to that 

 age being compelled to produce abortion. Between the terri- 

 tories of the savage and those of the Chinese there is generally 

 a few acres of common land in which barter is carried on, and 

 which bounds neither side are allowed to cross. On the range 

 of mountains inland of Tamsuy there is a copper-coloured race, 

 called the Kweiyings, whom I visited and found to be a short, 

 sturdy, good-looking people, of somewhat of the Malay type. 

 The men go about nearly naked, with merely a short jacket to 

 the waist, and a rag round the loins. In winter they wrap 

 themselves up in plaids. They wear pieces of wood through 

 their ears, as well as rings made of shells, and glass-bead neck- 

 laces, and carry their hair long and parted in the middle. The 

 women wear long wrappers round their loins, and jackets, and 

 wrap their heads in blue turbans. They also wear ear-rings and 

 necklaces. The unmarried men and women tattoo a square 

 mark on the forehead, the married men also on the chin, and 

 the married women right across the face, from ear to ear. Their 

 language contains many words allied to Malay. These people, 

 I was informed by some, occupied the greater part of the moun- 

 tain-range; and certainly those we met at Chock-e-day, on 

 the east coast, lat. 24° 7', in 1857, when circumnavigating the 

 island, more resembled the Kweiyings than the Kalees, who 

 are a darker race, more allied in appearance and language to the 

 Tagals of the Philippines, and inhabit the south end of Formosa. 

 But it is not improbable that there are yet other races in the 

 country intermediate between these two ; and in the higher 

 mountain-range, which attains to a height of 12,000 feet, I am 

 led to believe that a race of Negritos still exist. When at Sawo 

 and the adjoining plains on the N.E. coast, we found several 



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