Mr. R. Swinhoe on Formosan Ornithology. 213 



is very common about Foochow, whence it seems to migrate in 

 small parties, touching the coast and Amoy, and wings its way 

 probably to the Philippines and the Indian Archipelago. This, 

 however, is an assumption for which I have no proof further 

 than the fact of its coming from the interior of China to the 

 coast, and then entirely disappearing. It is certainly found in 

 Java, but whether also as a summer resident, I believe, has not 

 been recorded. A female of M. soloensis stands in the galleries 

 of the British Museum, from Shanghai; and another was procured 

 by Mr. Fleming, R.A., in summer, at Tientsin (North China). 

 Our present species, M. gularis, Mr. Gurney considers identical 

 with M. virgatus, Temm. ; and if it really is so, its distribution 

 must be far wider, for that species ranges throughout the penin- 

 sula of India, In Japan the M. gularis appears to occur abun- 

 dantly, and I have a specimen from Amoy. About Hongkong 

 and Canton I found another species breeding, which I recorded 

 in the ' Ibis,^ vol. iii. p. 25, where it was wrongly referred to 

 M. soloensis. Of this I have a specimen from Macao, and Mr. 

 Fleming procured another at Tientsin. These Mr. Gurney con- 

 siders probably new, unless they be referable to A. nisoides, 

 Blyth, which he has not seen. I have an immature bird of a 

 fourth species, peculiar for the remarkable elongation of the 

 tibial feathers down the outside of the tarsus, which was caught 

 on board a vessel near the Straits of Malacca. Mr. Gurney tells 

 me he has another of this, procured at Malacca, and he believes 

 it to be a good species not hitherto described. This last must 

 not, however, be included in the China list ; for we have not, as 

 yet, met with it on that coast. 



8. Circus spiLONOTus, Kaup*. (PI. V.) 



I observed a pair of Harriers beating over the rush-grown 

 delta of the Tamsuy River, above the gorge, in March. I watched 

 them for some time, but was unable to get within shot of them. 

 The male appeared of a pied plumage ; but the female was brown. 

 I concluded, therefore, that it must have been the species that 

 prevails in the neighbourhood of Amoy, rather than the true 

 C. melanoleucus, Gmel., which ranges in Asia from India to 

 Peking, and which I have also seen from the Philippines; for 

 * Mou. of the Falconidse, Contr. Orn. 1850, p. 59. 



