COMMON BIRDS OF THE YANGTZE DELTA. 13 



There is little use to describe the king of our local game 

 birds, the Mongolian or ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus 

 torguatNS). We all know him dressed either in his gaily col- 

 oured plumage parading the fields with his sober brown wife 

 or dressed with brown gravy and served up on a platter and 

 he is well worth our attention in either place. The Chinese 

 call him ya chi, or wild chicken, and for some reason the 

 name has come to be a synonym for anything that is illegal or 

 unlicensed. There are are nine species of pheasants found 

 in .China, some of them far more handsome than ours, but 

 they are mostly in the hills. This is the only one which 

 comes down to our plains. 



Fairly common in the pools around us are two chicken- 

 like birds which strangely enough have taken to the 

 water as their home. The moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) 

 and the watercock {Gallicrex cinerea) so called regard- 

 less of their sex. The Chinese do not distinguish between 

 them, calling both kah loong tiao in imitation of the 

 call especially of the watercock. The watercock is almost 

 as large as a pheasant minus its tail, and the moorhen is 

 slightly smaller. Both sexes of the moorhen and the male 

 watercock are dull black as seen from a distance*, and the 

 female watercock is mottled yellowish-brown rather dusky 

 above and lighter below. The most ready means of distin- 

 guishing the two species is the peculiar fleshy growth on their 

 forehead just above the bill. In the moorhen it is a flat 

 hard shield, flesh-pink to blood-red in colour. In the water- 

 cock it becomes an elevated knob about the size of the 

 end of one's little finger and half an inch high, varying in col- 

 our from almost white to blood-red. Both birds have ridic- 

 ulously large feet and long toes; these enable them to run 

 rapidly over floating vegetation or reeds; they can also swim 

 and dive fairly well in spite of having no webs on their feet. 



Of the many small wading birds the most common with 

 us is the green sandpiper {Totanus ochropus). I have never 

 been able to get any Chinese name for him. He is olive- 

 green above with black wings, white below, and has a large 

 white patch on his lower back at the root of the tail, which 

 shows plainest when flying. This bird may be seen almost 

 any time except mid-summer feeding along the edges of the 

 canals. When frightened he will dart off screaming with a 

 characteristic sandpiper call, a few rapid strokes alternating 

 with a short soar. 



Close kin to the sandpipers are the snipe. Several species 

 pass in migration, and are highly valued as table delicacies, 

 but the only one commonly seen is thefantail or winter snipe 

 ( GaUinago coelestis). He is mottled black-grey and yellowish- 

 brown all over, the grey predominating below, the belly 



