892 PROF. A.. NEWTON ON NEW [NoV. 16, 



TuEDTJS TABius, Pallas. (Plate LI. fig. 5.) 



More than twenty years ago my good friend the late Mr. Swinhoe, 

 so well known for his long-continued ornithological researches in 

 China, offered to and even pressed upon me a nest and three eggs 

 which he obtained near Ningpo in 1872 and considered to belong 

 to Oreocincla varia or Turdus varius. The account of them he 

 related to me and the appearance of the specimens failed to satisfy 

 me as to his determination, and as I could not accept his view of 

 them, I felt bound to decline the gift he would so generously have 

 made. He subsequently communicated a description of them to 

 the late Mr. Rowley, in whose ' Ornithological Miscellany ' it was 

 published in March 1877 (ii. pp. 255-257), together with a plate 

 representing the nest and the three eggs. One of the latter 

 afterwards became the property of Mr. Dresser, and thanks to him 

 I am able to show it to you to-night, while the remaining two, one 

 of which has been elsewhere figured, and the nest remained in 

 Mr. Swinhoe's possession until his death, and are now, I understand, 

 in the British Museum. 



I know of no other eggs professedly of this species in Europe, 

 except that which I also exhibit. It is one of four taken, as I am 

 informed, in the spring of 1890 near Tokio in Japan, by Professor 

 Isao Ijima of that University, and given by him to Canon Tristram, 

 from whom I received it in 1891. I cannot doubt that it is 

 correctly referred to this species ; and I may describe it as having 

 a pale bluish-green ground, very closely and finely mottled with 

 reddish-brown, the markings near the larger end being in some 

 places confluent, so as to form blotches, while there are traces of 

 pale lavender-grey spots intervening. This egg measures 1'29 by 

 •86 inch, and is thus, as miglit be expected, larger than the eggs 

 of most Thrushes, even than those of T. viscivorus. Mr. Dresser's 

 specimen, received from Mr. Swinhoe, measures 1'16 by '9 inch and 

 is of a french white, sparsely spotted with brownish-red, much like 

 some eggs of T, viscivorus \ 



Chasiempis sandticensis (Latham). 



Neither Mr. Scott Wilson nor Mr. Perkins on the first visit of 

 each to the Sandwich Islands succeeded in obtaining eggs of this 

 long-described species, though its beautiful nests were known to 

 both. The second attempt of each of these gentlemen was more 

 successful, and Mr. Wilson obtained a considerable series of 

 specimens. I find they measure from '82 to -87 by from -SB to 

 •62 inch. It would be useless to figure them or to describe them 

 otherwise than by saying that they might pass perfectly for eggs 

 of a Farus or Sitia. The nests are beautiful structures, almost 

 always built in a three-pronged fork of a bush, and are thickly 

 studded with lichens. 



' I may note that Dr. Menzbier (Ibis, 1893, pp. 371, 372) considers that 

 Turdus variiis probably breeds in the Ural Mountains, though it seems as yet 

 to have been found there only after inidsuiumer. 



