546 Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, b^c. 



A female bird. The contents of the stomach were remains of 

 beetles. 



The same day I shot a female Malacocercus taivanus. Its 

 bill was dull ochreous yellow, browner on the culmen. Legs 

 lighter and dingier; claws paler still. Stomach contained re- 

 mains of grasshoppers. 



I must conclude with a few words on an expedition I made, 

 on the 28th May, to Apes' Hill Bluff after Eagles. This bluff, 

 which is about 1100 feet above the sea, is a small plateau, cut 

 up again and again by deep chasms and small shallow valleys, 

 overgrown with grass and scrub, and difficult to traverse. The 

 sea-face is visited by Eagles; and I fancy a pair or two nestle on 

 its inaccessible cliffs. I failed on a former occasion to scale the 

 front ; I now attempted to take the fortress in rear. On my 

 way I was amused by the Monkeys [Macacus cyclopis), who 

 seem to possess almost human savey; and in one ravine I flushed 

 a pair of Bamboo-Partridges; but to the face of the bluff I 

 could not attain. It began to grow late, and, despairing of 

 having my eyes cheered by the sight of the Eagles and Falcoas 

 I should probably have found had I reached the cliffs, I turned 

 my steps backward. A Kite or two would occasionally hover 

 over me, enticing a shot ; but I was bent uponhigh er 'game. 

 Suddenly, on a peak before me, I descried a tall dark bird, 

 sitting erect. I walked carelessly on, and getting within dis- 

 tance let drive a cartridge at him. Over he toppled. I scram- 

 bled down the ravine at the imminent risk of my neck, forced 

 through the bushes, and, throwing myself forward, seized^'by 

 the wings what I felt confident was an eagle. Judge my mor- 

 tification when, turning the gasping bird to the light, I found I 

 held a Kite ! Yea, verily, an ignoble Milvus govinda, in its dark 

 first year's dress,— the transparency of the air and my excited 

 imagination having magnified it into the dimensions of an 

 Eagle. I am, &c., 



Robert Swinhoe. 



Bremen, Aug. 3, 1865. 

 Sir, — Perhaps you would like to publish in the next Number 

 of the ' Ibis ' a synonymical notice of some interest. The bird 



