448 Mr. J. D. D. La Tonchc— Field-Notes on 



collected birds in China, no female specimens of C. canturiens 

 had come under my notice, I began a few years ago to 

 suspect that some mistake had been committed in the 

 identification of these birds. I had seen and collected 

 the so-called C. minuta in Formosa, but only in winter, and 

 the three specimens which I shot I determined doubtfully 

 as females. During the first year that I was at Chinkiang 

 I shot a couple of these Cettia minuta, both undoubted 

 females, but no females of the larger bird ; so that when 

 Rickett sent me our Fohkien men in 1902, I gave them 

 special instructions to look for nests of C. canturiens, and 

 to secure in every case the female and also the male, if 

 possible. This was done. The collectors shot at the nest 

 several females, and in one case both male and female. 

 The females shot by our men in nowise differ from my 

 specimens of C. minuta from Formosa, nor from the two 

 females already shot by me at Chinkiang ; while the male 

 shot at the nest in company with one of the females is an 

 undoubted C. canturiens. To complete the evidence, Rickett 

 and I, in June 1905, looked through the series of C. minuta 

 in the British Museum, and ascertained that they were 

 identical with my specimens. All but one or two of 

 the sexed specimens of C. canturiens and C. minuta in the 

 B.M. collection are marked J 1 and $ respectively. The 

 exceptions are no doubt due to error in sexing. Cettia 

 canturiens Swinhoe and C. minuta Swinhoe are therefore but 

 the male and female of one species — Cettia canturiens Sw. 



Fifteen males from Formosa, Fohkien, and Chinkiang 

 vary in length of wing from 2 - 83 in. to 305 in., and 

 ten females from Formosa and Chinkiang from 225 in. to 

 2-46 in. 



Cettia cantans minuta from Formosa is probably also 

 C. canturiens ? , but I have only one example of this bird, 

 sexed doubtfully as a male. 



Swinhoe wrote (P. Z. S. 1863, p. 36) of C. minuta that it 

 is entirely distinct in manners and song (from C. canturiens) . 

 Most probably he took the song of C. sinensis of S. China to 

 be that of his C. minuta, both C. canturiens and C. sinensis 



