Mr. R. Swinhoe on Chinese Ornithology. 371 



on Hangchow Bay, with which there is direct canal communi- 

 cation from this. 



Before leaving Shanghai for the present, it would be as well 

 to say a few words on the birds that frequent her gardens 

 during the winter. The commonest resident is of course the 

 little House-Sparrow {Passer montanus) , as familiar and as noisy 

 as its congener at home, and certainly as dingy and as soot- 

 bedaubed as its cousin of London. It roosts and breeds under 

 the eaves of houses as elsewhere ; and I cannot say that I can 

 detect from recollection any difference between the manners 

 and notes of the two species. The bird of the gardens is the 

 large variety of the Green Bulbul [Ixos sinensis), with its rich 

 loud notes. It feeds on the berries of the many cultivated 

 bushes in winter, eats insects in summer, and breeds in as 

 exposed places as the Hedge-Sparrow in England. The 

 "Family Bird" (Munia acuticaudd) is the next common, 

 chirping and swingiug its tail violently from side to side as 

 it peers at you from the branches above. They build their 

 large round nests in the evergreens, usually about 20 feet from 

 the ground, in which the parent birds roost the winter through. 

 A pair are building a nest in a creeping-rose over my veranda. 

 They have been a week at it, and it is now all but finished. 

 The Tomtit (Parus minor) is singing out lustily his double 

 love-note, very like that of his large brother (P. major) at home, 

 as all his other notes are also. He has been here all the win- 

 ter, and will no doubt stay to breed. You find him in most 

 of the gardens. Picking about at the roots of bushes may be 

 seen an occasional Thrush (Turdus pattens) and the little winter 

 Blue-tail Robin [Ianthia cyanura) ; but the Blackbird seldom 

 enters the town, and it is only now and then that you see a 

 pair of Magpie Robins chasing and screeching after each 

 other*. A Blue Magpie {Cyanopolius cyanus) or a Shrike 

 * A Magpie has its nest in a large tree in the compound of a mercantile 

 firm. The same birds and the same nest infested a tree in a garden a few 

 doors off 1 , where the birds reared their young from year to year until last 

 year, when a cat destroyed the progeny. The birds carried away the 

 nest twig by twig and set up on the tree which they now occupy. Swal- 

 lows have been here since the beginning of this month, and are looking 

 up their last year's nests in the rafters of the Chinese shops. 



