Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, S^c. 109 



a gloss of purple in some lights. . Front of tarse feathered for 

 about I inch. 



The specimen from which the above note was taken was 

 brought to me from the interior in May ; it answers well to 

 Jerdon's description of the female oi A. virgatus (B. of India, 

 vol. i. p. 52). A. virgatus has not hitherto been noted from 

 Eastern Asia ; but as it is stated to extend along the Archipelago 

 to the Philippines^ there is no reason why it should not also 

 occur in Formosa. I saw a Sparrow-Hawk wheeling about, the 

 other day, over a wooded valley. It looked very like an indivi- 

 dual of this species ; but I was not able to get a shot at it. 



SULA SINICADVENA, Swiuhoe. 



In my China list, published in the ' Proceedings,^ I have set 

 down No. 404, Sula fusca, Shaw, as seen from Shanghai, and 

 recorded in the ' Fauna Japonica ' from Japan. The bird I saw 

 while in England was in Mr. Whiteley's hands, and I was in- 

 formed by Mr. Whiteley that the specimen was brought home 

 together with some other Chinese birds, and that he felt sure it 

 was Chinese. The evidence not being satisfactory, I entered 

 the bird in my list on the faith of its having been noted in the 

 ' Fauna Japonica.' But the other day a specimen having been 

 captured on board a steamer between this port and Foochow, I 

 have been induced to try and identify it correctly. My speci- 

 men tallies, as far as I recollect, entirely with the specimen seen 

 in Mr. Whiteley's hands. What the Japanese bird is like I can- 

 not say, as I do not think it is described in the ' Fauna Japonica'; 

 or, if it were, I have not that work by me : the description does 

 not occur in my extracts from it. I consequently refer to Blyth's 

 * Catalogue,' wherein (page 296) I find two species noted from the 

 tropical seas. Bay of Bengal, &c., Sula fiber (L.) and Sulapisca- 

 tor (L.). In Bonaparte's ' Conspectus,' the former of these stands 

 (vol. ii. p. 164) as Dysporus sula (L.), (D. fiber and D. fusca both 

 being its synonyms), the latter as Piscatrix Candida (Br.). The 

 latter is expressly stated to be found in China, and in Van der 

 Hoeven's ' Handbook of Zoology' (vol. ii. p. 387) is said " to be 

 taught by the Chinese to catch fish." S. piscatrix may, for aught 

 I know to the contrary, be a Chinese bird ; but I believe in this 



