130 
Mr. R. Swinhoe— A Voice on 
Surely a collector could give a more restricted habitat for his 
captures ! I cannot, however, myself accept Mr. Fortune's Chinese 
species. His sole object appears to have been to procure showy 
things, and he could have had no interest at heart in noting 
down their special localities. Furthermore I have before ex¬ 
plained that Canton is a great emporium for all kinds of showy 
birds, many of which are brought from all parts of the Indian 
archipelago. I have in some of the shops there seen side by 
side Ampelis garrulus , Loxia curvirostra, and other North-China 
species with Lories, Parrots, Farrakeets, Love-birds, &(h I 
was informed by Mr. G. R. Gray that Loriculus galgulus was 
brought by Mr. Fortune from China. I did not specially 
wonder at it, as I myself had procured skins of Paradisea apoda 
at Canton, and had seen the Malayan birds above noted. Never¬ 
theless I did not, on the strength of such evidence, introduce L. 
galgulus into my Chinese list. I do not, by any means, wish to 
disparage Mr. Fortune's labours in the cause of science, but simply 
insist upon satisfactory evidence before I can take upon myself 
to admit a species, when I consider the determination of the 
geographical distribution of birds of such importance. A live 
bird purchased in a shop, or a dried skin procured in the same 
way, by no means proves that the creature was found wild in 
the neighbourhood of the shop. It may matter little in horti¬ 
culture whence a fine form comes, but its exact habitat is 
positively required in our science. 
I wish somebody would give us a list of the Philippine Birds*. 
It would be of great service to me. I have just heard of a 
Dr. Otto Semper who has been some years collecting specimens 
in Manilla. lam trying to get up an exchange and a corre¬ 
spondence with him. Some fruits will, I hope, result from 
this. 
The Cuckoos are very bothersome. According to Mr. Blyth 
my newly-described Cuculus monosyllahicus (Ibis, 1865, p. 545) 
will be C. canoroideSy S. Muller. I will make an effort to work 
the genus by-and-by. 
* [Such a list has just appeared in the ( Journal fur Ornithologie ’ for 
January 1866. It has been compiled with much pains by Dr. Eduard 
von Martens.— Ed.] 
