Mr. R. Swinhoe on Formosan Ornithology. 395 
birds, we find the specimens so variable, and running so much 
one into the other, as to make it next to impossible to draw up 
definite distinguishing characters, and to lead one almost to 
suppose that the various races interbreed. Mr. Blythhas kindly 
looked over my many Cuckoos from China and Formosa, 
and declares that the majority of those from Amoy, and all 
from Peking, belong to C. canorus. These I had noted in all 
my previous papers as C. striatus, with the statement that the 
note of our bird was identical with that of the English Cuckoo. 
I must, however, in justice to myself, declare that the mistake 
occurred through the wrong identification by Mr. Blyth of a 
skin of C. canorus, sent from Amoy, before that gentleman had 
studied the Cuckoo-group so well as he has since done. At 
Amoy Cuckoos come to us merely on their, hasty passage in their 
vernal and autumnal migrations, and we therefore have seldom 
an opportunity of hearing their notes. I have, however, in the 
interior of the country, near Amoy, watched a Cuckoo which 
uttered quite a peculiar note. Of this bird I possess one speci¬ 
men, which Mr. Blyth identifies as the C. micropterus, Gould. 
I have another from the same locality set down by the same 
authority as the C. himalayanus, Vigors (see Gould^s Cent.), which 
equals C. poliocephalus. To this last our North-Formosan bird 
is most closely allied, but is bigger, with a larger and longer 
bill, and with the whole of the breast bluish grey. As all the 
four specimens I possess from Formosa agree in these pecu¬ 
liarities, I have thought it right to keep them, for the present 
at least, separate from the Chinese bird. I believe the Formosan 
bird is a summer visitant only. All my skins of this race were 
procured, in April, in the North of Formosa; and as I did not pro¬ 
cure it in the S.W., I have named it after the northernmost 
district, Kelung. In the proportions of their wings and tails 
the specimens vary, but the males are always decidedly larger 
than females. 
<3 . Bill along culmen 1 in.; along base of lower mandible 1*15. 
Total length 13 in.; wing 7*7; tail 6-6. Upper mandible and 
apical three-tenths of lower blackish brown. Basal edge of upper 
and remainder of lower orange-yellow, the latter tinged with green 
and dingy. Inside of mouth orange. Rim round eye orange- 
2 e 2 
