156 Mr. R. Swinhoe on Birds from Hakodadi. 
out during the day. The little captives have no song; but 
they amuse by their incessant activity, and by the Tit-like 
habit they are fond of exhibiting of holding a seed firmly be¬ 
tween their feet while they hammer on it with the bill until it 
breaks. They are often brought in cages from Japan to China. 
15. Lesser Ox-eye. Parus minor , T. & S. 
A male, from Hakodadi, of February. This has the second 
tail-feather only tipped with white; but the amount of white 
on this feather varies. I have one specimen from China 
(Tingchow) in which the second feather on one side of the tail 
has very much more white than the corresponding feather on 
the other side. 
16. Northern Marsh-Tit. Parus borealis, Selys. 
Blakiston's specimen was shot in January; and I have one 
of Whitely*s from Hakodadi, shot in December. They both 
have the black extending down the hind neck, with a whitish 
margin, the light back, and whitish edging to secondary wing- 
quills that distinguish the northern form from the true Marsh- 
Tit. It is curious, however, that about Peking we get the 
true Parus p alus tr is, L., which I carelessly identified before 
with P. kamtschatkensis , Bp. (This last I now take to be the 
same as my Pcecile baicalensis , Ann. N. H. ser. 4, vol. vii. 
p. 257, 1871.) The Russian ornithologists only record P. 
borealis from Siberia; but it is very certain that both forms 
must come across the Asiatic continent; for if we take it 
for granted that P. borealis has been developed out of P. pa~ 
lustris, we could scarcely expect a reversal of the process. 
17. Bottle-Tit. Acredula caudata (Linn.). 
The white-headed European species, which I have also from 
Amoorland, from Yon Schrenck. O. trivirgatm , like our 
English form, occurs in South Japan. 
18. Japanese Pied Wagtail. Motacilla japonica, Swinh. 
zU Mr. Blakiston has sent five of this species, three of which 
he has presented to me ; let us mark them for convenience* 
sake A, B, C. A is a female shot in April, and at first glance 
might easily be taken for the grey-backed M. ocularis of 
