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GARRULUS TAIVANUS, Gould. 



Formosan Jay. 



Garrulus Tawanus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc. 1862, p. 282.— Swinh. in Ibis, 1863, p. 386. 



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The true or typical Jays are confined, or nearly so, to the northern regions of the Old World. Two very 

 distinct species inhabit Europe, our well-known bird being one of them ; North Africa is frequented by 

 two others, which do not visit Europe ; while India, China, and Japan possess three, if not four, more. 



The new species, from the Island of Formosa, here figured is nearly allied to the Himalayan Garrulus 

 bispecularis and the Chinese G. sinensis, but is at once distinguished from both by its black frontal band and 

 its much smaller size. Of the G. Taimnus Mr. Swinhoe remarks : — 



" This small mountain species represents, in Formosa, the Jay that frequents the hill countries of South 

 China, from Canton to Ningpo — G. sinensis, Gould. The Formosan Jay has a comparatively larger bill, and 

 is at once distinguishable from its Chinese congeners by its much smaller size, by its black frontal band 

 from nostril to nostril, by its whitish ring round the eye, by the somewhat different arrangement of blue, 

 white, and black tints on the wings, and by the greater extension of white on the margins of the primary 

 quills. Though the members of this genus are somewhat migratory, yet their peregrinations are always 

 within a limited sphere ; and wherever the Jay occurs in isolated localities, we meet with aberrations from 

 the typical form. 



" I have only one pair from Formosa ; but the characters I now proceed to define are constant. 



" General plumage light vinaceous, greyish on the back and scapularies, and delicately barred on the 

 crown with a deeper shade ; rump-band and upper tail-coverts white ; tail black ; abdomen and vent white ; 

 feathers over the nostrils and round the base of the bill black ; round the eye a ring of white feathers ; 

 quills black, the second primary margined for nearly its whole length with white, the third to a less 

 extent, the fourth less still, until the inner ones have scarce any indication of it ; the secondaries for more 

 than the basal half of their outer webs barred with white, blending into deep blue and then black, in 

 consecutive order ; primary coverts and winglet similarly barred, but more closely, the black bars being 

 broader ; the foremost secondary coverts bluish grey, finely barred with indistinct black and blue striae ; 

 lesser coverts vinaceous brown, broadly tipped with a rufous hue of the same ; the rest of the wing black ; 

 under shafts of the quills and rectrices pale ochreous brown ; bill bluish grey for rather more than the basal 

 half; apical portion black ; irides light clear blue ; legs light ochreous brown, with brown claws." 



The Plate represents this new Jay of the natural size. 





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