254 Mr. R, Swinhoe on the Ornithology of Hainan. 



a sea ! Certainly not ! for^ midway between Naochow and 

 Hongkong, we found it on the island of Hoe-ling, and it 

 occurs in all the islands off the south coast of China and abun- 

 dantly in Formosa, which is 80 miles from the nearest point 

 on the China coast. The exclusive occurrence of the " Black- 

 cap " at Naochow might suggest a remote connexion of that 

 island with Hainan while the southern portion of the peninsula 

 was under water. Under the circumstance of its occurring also 

 in the peninsula, I do not consider it at all necessary to fly to 

 geological transformations to account for its existence in the 

 small island. It strikes me that the facts are more easily ex- 

 plained by imagining an early colonization of Hainan by a few 

 wanderers of /. sinensis, which in their isolation lost their occi- 

 pital character and, as the Chinese opened and cultivated the 

 country, so increased and multiplied that their surplus folk were 

 compelled to invade the Luichow peninsula, and extend their 

 range to Naochow island ; for be it remarked that this type of 

 Ixus is a bird that affects cultivation and the neighbourhood of 

 men, and the Chinese commenced settling in Hainan some cen- 

 turies B.C., as their records show. The southward irruption of 

 the unchanged /. sinensis we must in such case allow to be quite 

 recent ; or, from their powers of reproduction, they would soon 

 have formed in sufficient numbers to invade the new territory, 

 since the conditions of life must be very much the same on either 

 side of the narrow channels. At Luichow they may possibly 

 interbreed, but I saw no hybrids. 



One other supposition occurs to me, which may be the right 

 one to explain the facts, — that the typical /. sinensis was the 

 original occupier of the whole neighboui'hood, including the 

 peninsula and the small and large island, and that it is now 

 being superseded by the later-formed race, which being pro- 

 duced in the locality, and especially adapted to its circum- 

 stances, multiplies and extends, while the original stock is de- 

 caying. 



The Chinese writers of some centuries back call the Hainan 

 Ixus by the same name as the Chinese race ; and one author 

 gives a joke which annoyed a celebrated old gentleman with a 

 bald head. The latter was sitting with some friends in an 



