Birds of North-ivest Fohkien. 35 



If it nests in the Kuatun Mountains it must do so very 

 late, as none of those sliot by us, including one obtained on 

 the 16th May, showed any signs of breeding. I once heard 

 a native say that he had found the nest late in the season. 

 On previous trips our collectors obtained examples of this 

 species in April, May, June, September, and October. They 

 told us that on every occasion the birds were in flocks and 

 that they were not breeding. 



The soft parts of examples shot at Kuatun are as follows : — 

 Iris dark brown ; bill light greenish plumbeous, tipped and 

 edged with black ; legs dark greyish pink, 



111. Fringilla moxtifringilla L. 

 Winters in North-west Fohkien. 



112. MUNIA ACUTICAUDA HodgS. 



Obtained at Shao-wu-fu in December 1895. 



113. Passer montanus (L.). 



Lowlands of North-west Fohkien. It does not occur at 

 Kuatun. 



114. Passer rutilans Temm. 



This is the mountain Sparrow of Fohkien. A pair or two 

 build in the houses at Knatuu and Upper Kuatun, whence 

 we have an egg taken in May 1896. 



I have a clutch of four eggs taken by our men from a 

 hole in a tree near the river, a few miles inland of Foochow. 

 They resemble some eggs of P. montanus, but are much 

 smaller. The ground-colour of three of them is a dirty 

 white, and they are thickly streaked and speckled with pale 

 sepia-brown over grey underlying blotches. The under- 

 lying blotches are, in one egg, concentrated about the large 

 end ; in the other two they occur all over the egg. The 

 fourth egg is white, with a cap of sepia-brown blotches over 

 underlying inky-grey confluent blotches. A few blotches 

 are distributed over the rest of the egg. The shape of these 

 eggs is ovate, with a strong tendency to oval. They measure 

 0-73 X 0-54, 073 x 053, and 0-73 x 0-52 (two) inch. 



D 2 



