Mr. R. Swinhoe on Formosan Ornithology. 311 
shall content myself, for the present, in leaving it along with 
S. chrysea, to glory as a troublesome and aberrant form among 
the Babbling Thrushes ; for, barring its head, the rest of its 
build, its habits, and the colour of its eggs are in accordance 
with those of Garrulax, and point to a kinship, however distant, 
with that multiform group. 
On the 5th of June, 1865,1 received some male Green Pigeons 
from the Fungshan Mountains (Takow is in the Fungshan dis¬ 
trict) . I thought I had got in them the male of my Treron 
formosce, which species I had created on a single female pro¬ 
cured at Taiwan in 1860 (Ibis, 1863, p. 396). I described the 
bird in one of my late papers \antea, p. 122], noting that the i 
species was not a true Treron, but, from its long, broad, wedge- 
shaped tail, a Sphenocercus. I left my single type-specimen in 
England ; but I have now received a male of the true Treron for - 
mosce from the Kia-e district, and several of both sexes of the 
same from the Fungshan district. It is incumbent on me 
therefore to correct my hasty error, and to describe now the 
true Treron formosce male. The Sphenocercus I should like to 
stand as S. sororius, from its close affinity to S. sieboldi , Tem- 
minck, of Japan, from which, on reading the description of that 
bird in the ‘ Fauna Japonica/ I find it to differ in the following 
characters:—Its upper back is only tinged with grey, instead 
of being deep grey; its greater wing-coverts and tertiaries are 
edged with pale primrose; but its chief difference is in the 
blackish-grey of its lateral tail-feathers. The size of the two 
species would seem to run very close; and I would hesitate to 
make a distinct species of our bird without actual comparison of 
specimens, were it not a known fact that species of this group 
usually enjoy a very limited range. 
Sphenocercus sororius, mihi [“ S. formosce <$ Ibis, 1866, 
p. 122, nec Treron formosce, Swinh. op. cit. 1863, p. 396], §, * 
is grass-green on the forehead and under neck. Her upper 
parts are of a duller and browner green, and devoid of the blue- 
grev on the back and maroon-chestnut patch on shoulders and U-0% 
wing-coverts. The third quill of this species is sinuated on 
the edge of the inner web, as in most Treronine Pigeons. Dr. 
Jerdon, however, says that such is not the case with the Indian 
