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Show 1870.] MR. R. SWINHOE ON NEW CHINESE BIRDS. 133 I got my single specimen of this species at Hankow from a bird-catcher, who was picking the birds off the trees in the foreign settlement by means of a little bird-lime stuck to the top of a bamboo-pole. He had secured only one of this species, but had plenty of Munice and young Sparrows. 4. PARUS VENUSTULUS, sp. nov. Head, throat, breast, neck, and back deep black, glossed with bluish purple. Cheeks and sides of neck, edges of central occipital feathers, a large spot on centre of nape, and some of the upper dorsals at tips, white. A little yellow washes the nuchal and dorsal white. Lower back, rump, and scapulars fine bluish grey, touched with yellowish green. Wing-coverts and tertiaries deep black ; the lesser coverts tipped with large spots of white, the greater coverts and tertiaries with light greenish yellow. Quills dark hair-brown; secondaries margined with yellowish green, and lightly tipped with white; primaries yellowish green at basal margins, narrowly edged with white further upwards, and tipped with whitey-brown. Upper tail-coverts deep black, faintly tipped with green. Tail black, deeper and richer on basal half, edged with greenish grey on apical portion, and tipped with yellowish; the fifth rectrix with white on centrla edge, increasing outwardly to the first or outermost, which has the greater part of basal half of outer web white. Under parts fine sulphur- yellow, olivaceous on the sides and flanks. Axillaries and carpal edge yellowish white. Under edges of inner webs to quills white. Bill indigo-black. Irides blackish brown. Legs, toes, and claws deep lead-colour. Bill typical, but large and thick for so small a species. Tail graduated inwardly or forked, the central rectrices *1 shorter than the outermost. Wing : first quill very short; second *2 shorter than the third and fourth, which are nearly equal and longest. Length about 4 inches ; wing 2*65 ; tail 1*6 ; bill *35, thick *15 ; tarse *64. Claws curved, strong; hind claw moderate. This charming species occurred throughout the precipitous mountain gorges through which the great river runs from Kweifoo in Szechuen to Ichang in Hoopih. I found it at the latter place in company with Parus minor. It is a very active little species, and has quite a peculiar sibilant note. Its yellow belly recalls Parus monticola of the Himalayas, but it wants the black mesial stripe. I could scarcely believe at first that I had got a distinct species, as in Formosa we find the P. insperatus, which is little more than a race of the P. monticola, and I expected that a black and yellow Tit from Central China would be either that or the Himalayan bird itself. 5. /EGITHALUS CONSOBRINUS, sp. nov. Male. Crown light grey, with a few blackish streaks and a few broader white ones. A black line runs over the bill, lores, under the eye, over the ear coverts, and a little beyond. Above the black over the bill a white line occurs, passing in a distinct eyebrow over and beyond the eyes. Under the black line a white one starts from the base of the lower mandible, and extends onward to meet the eyebrow white beyond the black ear-coverts. Back and scapulars light russet |