302 Mr. R. Swinlioe on Formosan Ornithology. 
This bird is also well known to the Indians of the interior,, and 
was no doubt originally procured from them by the Chinese. 
The Chinese name for it is, I suspect, only a version of the name 
it goes by among some of the hill-tribes. To the aborigines, 
however, it is more than a mere fighting pet. It is their bird 
of omen, and apparently the ruler of all their actions. In the 
“ Dictionary of the Favorlang Dialect of the Formosan Lan¬ 
guage,” by Gilbertus Happart, 1650 (translated by W. H. 
Medhurst, 1840), it is mentioned as “ Adam, a certain small 
bird, less than a Sparrow; variegated with a long tail; from 
whose cry future good or bad fortune may be presumed; if it cries 
out twice or four times, it betokens misfortune; but if once, or 
thrice, or five times, then good success; if anything above this, 
it intimates a still greater blessing, according to the number of 
cries.” Again, in Ogilby^s ‘Atlas Chinensis ’ (vol. ii.), in some 
notes afforded by “ David Wright, a Scotsman,” who spent 
some years in Formosa during the occupation of the Dutch, it 
is stated, with reference to the mode of warfare among the For¬ 
mosans, that “ Before they march into the field they supersti- 
tiously observe the dreams which they had the night preceding, 
and augur from the singing and flying of a certain small bird 
called Aidak. If this bird meets them flying with a worm in 
his bill, they take it for an infallible sign that they shall con¬ 
quer their enemies. But if the bird flies from them, or pass* by 
them, they are so much disheartened by the ill-omen that they 
return home, and will not engage until they have better signs.” 
Again, on the subject of the chase, “ Before they go out they 
tell to one another the dreams they had the preceding night, 
and also neglect not augurial observations; insomuch that if 
the bird f Aidak * meet them, they count it a good omen. But 
if it flies either on the right or left side of them, they put off the 
sport till some other time.” 
Most nations have their emblematic bird, beast, or reptile; 
and I now introduce to the readers of i The Ibis ’ the emble¬ 
matic bird of Formosa—small, it is true, but well typifying a 
land of which Ogilby remarks “ that each town being a republic, 
they still have wars and are at difference one with another, town 
against town, village against village, insomuch that peace never 
