213 
Mr. R. Swinhoe on Formosan Ornithology. 
is very common about Foochow, whence it seems to migrate in 
small parties, touching the coast and Amoy, and wings its way 
probably to the Philippines and the Indian Archipelago. This, 
however, is an assumption for which I have no proof further 
than the fact of its coming from the interior of China to the 
coast, and then entirely disappearing. It is certainly found in 
Java, but whether also as a summer resident, I believe, has not 
been recorded. A female of M. soloensis stands in the galleries 
of the British Museum, from Shanghai; and another was procured 
by Mr. Fleming, R.A., in summer, at Tientsin (North China). 
Our present species, M. gularis , Mr. Gurney considers identical 
with M. virgatus , Temm.; and if it really is so, its distribution 
must be far wider, for that species ranges throughout the penin¬ 
sula of India. In Japan the M. gularis appears to occur abun¬ 
dantly, and 1 have a specimen from Amoy. About Hongkong 
and Canton I found another species breeding, which I recorded 
in the f Ibis/ vol. iii. p. 25, where it was wrongly referred to 
M. soloensis. Of this I have a specimen from Macao, and Mr. 
Fleming procured another at Tientsin. These Mr. Gurney con¬ 
siders probably new, unless they be referable to A. nisoides, 
Blyth, which he has not seen. I have an immature bird of a 
fourth species, peculiar for the remarkable elongation of the 
tibial feathers down the outside of the tarsus, which was caught 
on board a vessel near the Straits of Malacca. Mr. Gurney tells 
me he has another of this, procured at Malacca, and he believes 
it to be a good species not hitherto described. This last must 
not, however, be included in the China list; for we have not, as 
yet, met with it on that coast. 
8. Circus spilonotus, Kaup*. (PI. V.) 
I observed a pair of Harriers beating over the rush-growu 
delta of the Tamsuy River, above the gorge, in March. I watched 
them for some time, but was unable to get within shot of them. 
The male appeared of a pied plumage; but the female was brown. 
I concluded, therefore, that it must have been the species that 
prevails in the neighbourhood of Amoy, rather than the true 
C. melanoleucus, Gmel., which ranges in Asia from India to 
Peking, and which I have also seen from the Philippines; for 
* Mon. of the Falconidje, Contr. Orn. 1850, p. 59. 
