34 
Mr. J. D. D. La Touche on the 
birds which are lying down jump up instinctively, and all 
huddle together. I moved a group of five as gently as 
possible with my foot, and one individual tumbled into the 
soft mud two feet below a bank, where it lay for several 
minutes, while its companions walked away to the beach, 
avoiding the freshwater-pools, into which they might have 
plunged and made more rapid progress. A few minutes 
later I returned just in time to see it ascending on all fours, 
continuing the amble until out of harm’s way. 
The delicate and conspicuous colours of the lower mandible 
show gradations. In a group of nine I noted on February 
2nd:— (a) black; (b) ivory-white; (c) fleshy to coral-red. 
(a) had finished its moult, and seemed to be a young one, 
with a rich golden-yellow lateral mark on the neck, (b) was 
a bird of ordinary proportions, with a coral-red patch on one 
side of the mandible at the distal end. (c) was a moulting 
bird, but with nearly double the girth of others of the same 
height, and was apparently one-third heavier. Instead of 
golden yellow on its neck, it had white, feebly tinged with 
yellow, and there was no gold line on the chest. I am 
inclined to think that the colour-development goes from 
black to red. In skinning these birds I noticed the dorsal 
fat, where the feathers were black, was black, and in the 
ventral region, beneath the white feathers, the adipose tissue 
was white. In young birds the down remains longest on the 
neck and flippers, and the whole plumage is not so bright as 
that of the adult. The head and throat are grey, instead of 
black, in the mature bird. 
II .—Notes on the Birds of North-west Fohkien. 
By J. D. D. La Touche, C.M.Z.S. 
[Continued from ‘The Ibis,’ 1899, p. 431.] 
-{-110. Pyrrhula nipalensis Hodgs. 
This Bullfinch was common enough during the first two 
weeks of our stay at Kuatun, where we found it in small 
flocks ; afterwards it apparently became scarce. Only two 
were shot in May. 
