1864. ] . DR. P. L. SCLATER ON A NEW COCKATOO. 187 
feet being white, and by the pure abrupt white of its under parts. The 
bristles of its upper parts are also more numerous and more spinous. 
It was, perhaps, originally brought over by Chinese junks, and drove 
before it some other species, of which some few may yet be found lin- 
gering about the huts of the savages of the interior. For, in former 
days, before the accession of western commerce, M. flavescens was 
doubtless the chief Rat of the towns of Southern China; and special 
circumstances may have caused it to vary ; or its pedigree may perhaps 
be carried further back to the time when there must have been more 
territorial connexion between this island and the main, when Lepus 
sinensis, Cervulus reevesii, and others managed to get across and 
remain to this day in either country identical and unchanged in 
form. These, however, are merely conjectures ; but the facts remain 
that Mus coninga is allied to M. flavescens, and that both have been 
banished from their accustomed haunts by the cosmopolite usurper, 
M. decumanus. 
The Formosan Rat is distinguished by the Chinese colonists from 
M. decumanus, which they call Laou chee, by the name Pay-ba, or 
white belly. The country-people attribute medicinal properties to 
its flesh, and value its carcase at fourpence a piece. I propose to 
name the animal after the powerful pirate chief who seized the island 
from the Dutch, and whose nightly rest this indigenous species must 
have as greatly disturbed as do its commercial successors those of 
the present trading community. 
2. On a New Species or Waite CocKAToo LIVING IN THE 
Society's Garpens. By P. L. Scrater, M.A., Pu.D., 
F.R.S., SecRETARY TO THE SOCIETY. 
(Plate XVII.) 
In April of the year before last the Society obtained from the ship 
‘La Hogue’ (as recorded in the ‘ Proceedings’ for May 13, 1862) * 
a pair of a fine large species of White Cockatoo, new to the collection. 
Somewhat influenced, I must confess, by the information that they 
had been brought to Sydney from the Salomon Islands, I was induced 
to refer these birds to the Cacatua ducorpsii, obtained by MM. 
Hombron and Jacquinot in that group of islands, and described b 
those naturalists in the Zoology of the ‘ Voyage au Péle Sud,’ 
although they did not quite agree with the characters and figure 
there given of that species. 
On its returu voyage this year the same ship has brought over a 
pair of smaller White Cockatoos, received at Sydney from the island 
of Guadalcanar, of the Salomon group. As soon as I saw them, 
I was at once convinced that I had made a mistake in referring the 
former pair of birds to Cacatua ducorpsii, and that the latter pair 
were rightfully entitled to that designation. It thus becomes neces- 
* See P. Z. S. 1862, p. 141. 
