Birds. 



8741 



birds are particularly common during winter, but they are nearly 

 always females. 1 do not know for what reason, but in this locality 

 the adult male is peculiarly rare until the spring, when a few may 

 occasionally be met with. In many points of habit this bird seems to 

 connect the harriers with the Govinda kites, feeding largely on offal 

 and carrion, as well as on Batrachians and small mammals. All these 

 objects I have found in the stomachs of those I have dissected, but 

 remains of birds never. In its heavy-sailing flight this species also 

 more resembles kites than a harrier. They were such offensive birds 

 that I did not care to preserve more than a few for identification. 



9. Ninox japonicus. An individual of this species used to come 

 regularly every evening to my garden at Tamsuy, in the dusk of 

 evening, during winter, and, perching always on the same branch of 

 one particular tree, devour its meal, which generally consisted of some 

 small murine mammal. I think I can be sure it was a Ninox, though 

 I procured no specimens. In my former papers I have always set 

 down the Chinese species as identical with the Indian bird ; but since 

 my return to England, Mr. Gurney has pointed out to me that ours is 

 rather the Japanese species ; and I now find, on comparison with 

 Indian specimens, that the Chinese bird is larger, much deeper 

 coloured, and differs in the shapo of the wing. 



10. Athene pardalota, Swlnhoe. 



11. Scops semitorques, Schleg. Faun. Japon. t. 8. A fine female 

 example of this bird, and the only one I procured in Formosa, was 

 brought to me on the 1st of April from the interior hills. It also 

 occurs at Foochow, whence 1 have received numerous examples. The 

 Foochow bird has been identified by Mr. Blyth as Scops Lempiji, 

 Horsf. ; but then that gentleman had probably only compared it with 

 Himalayan specimens; and Professor Schlegel assures me that all the 

 skins he has seen from Hindostan are referable to S. semitorques, and 

 not to S. Lempiji, which is confined to Java and the Indian Archi- 

 pelago. On a trip into the interior, near Tamsuy, I observed one of this 

 species in the dusk of the evening. It flew out of a pine tree on to 

 the roof of a low native house, and then, ruffling up its feathers, kept 

 stretching forth its head and hooting. Its cries resembled the syl- 

 lables hoo-houat, the first pronounced sharp and quick, the latter 

 hoarsely and with more stress. In the dead silence of the night these 

 sounds were rather startling, and might easily be understood to have 

 a portent of evil by the unsophisticated mind. The Chinese, as most 

 other partially civilized people, regard the owl as a bird of ill omen, 

 and dread its approach to their houses ; but they also connect unclean 



