Mr. R; Swinhoe on Furmosan Ornithology. 401 



This pugnacious propensity often meets, as perhaps it deserves to 

 do, with an evil fate. The Chinese fowler listens for the challenge, 

 and sets on the disputed hill a trap with a caged decoy within. 

 The decoy is trained, and sets up a reply. The lord and lady of 

 the manor rush to the spot, and run recklessly into the trap and 

 are caught. The captures are taken to the market and sold 

 as cage-birds, the Chinese having a great love for the horrible 

 screeching cry that this bird is incessantly sending forth. In 

 the night this bird leaves the shelter of the grass and bush, and 

 repairs to the branches of bamboos and other trees to roost. It 

 is an excellent percher, being quite at home on a branch, in 

 which respect it differs from the Chinese Francolin [Francolinus 

 perlatus), which never perches. It nests in a depression in the 

 ground, usually under shelter of a bush or tuft, and lays a large 

 number of eggs — from seven to a dozen or more. The eggs a 

 good deal resemble those of Perdix cinerea, being of a dark 

 brownish cream-colour; length 1"38, breadth 1 in. I have, 

 however, one very small egg, measuring 1 by "85 in. 



I add a note on a female Bambusicola thoracica (Temm.), pro- 

 cured at Foochow, 12th May 1862. " Length IQi in. ; wing 5 ; 

 tail3-j^. Bill blackish grey, with broad pale tip. Iris rich brown; 

 eyelid brown. Legs and claws light greenish grey, with spur- 

 wart of same colour." 



116. Phasianus torquatus, Gmel. 



The Pheasant found throughout the plains and lower hills of 

 Formosa is identical with the Chinese Pheasant, the only no- 

 ticeable difference between the two being in the Formosan 

 having the ochreous flank-feathers very pale. In other respects, 

 I think, their identity is complete. 



117. EuPLocAMus swiNHoii, Gould, P. Z. S. 1862, p. 284. 



I was informed by my hunters that a second species of Phea- 

 sant, which was denominated by the Chinese colonists Wd-ko'e, 

 was found in the interior mountains, that it was a true jungle- 

 bird, frequenting the wild hill-ranges of the aborigines, and 

 rarely descending to the lower hills that border on the Chinese 

 territory, and that in the evening and early morning the male 

 was in the habit of showing himself on an exposed branch or 



