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Show 892 PROF. A. NEWTON ON NEW [Nov. 16, TURDUS VARIUS, Pallas. (Plate LI. fig. 5.) More than twenty years ago m y good friend the late Mr. Swinhoe, so well known for his long-continued ornithological researches in China, offered to and even pressed upon me a nest and three eggs which he obtained near Ningpo in 1872 and considered to belong to Oreoclncla varia or Turdus varius. The account of them he related to m e and the appearance of the specimens failed to satisfy me as to his determination, and as I could not accept his view of them, I felt bound to decline the gift he would so generously have made. He subsequently communicated a description of them to the late Mr. Bovvley, in whose ' Ornithological Miscellany' it was published in March 1877 (ii. pp. 255-257), together with a plate representing the nest and the three eggs. One of the latter afterwards became the property of Mr. Dresser, and thanks to him I am able to show it to you to-night, while the remaining two, one of which has been elsewhere figured, and the nest remained in Mr. Swinboe's possession until his death, and are now, I understand, in the British Museum. I know of no other eggs professedly of this species in Europe, except that which I also exhibit. It is one of four taken, as I am informed, in the spring of 1890 near Tokio in Japan, by Professor Isao Ijima of that University, and given by him to Canon Tristram, from whom I received it in 1891. I cannot doubt that it is correctly referred to this species; and I may describe it as having a pale bluish-green ground, very closely and finely mottled wdth reddish-brown, the markings near the larger end being in some places confluent, so as to form blotches, while there are traces of pale lavender-grey spots intervening. This egg measures 1*29 by •86 inch, and is thus, as might be expected, larger than the eggs of most Thrushes, even than those of T. viscivorus. Mr. Dresser's specimen, received from Mr. Swinhoe, measures 1*16 by *9 inch and is of a french white, sparsely spotted with brownish-red, much like some eggs of T. viscivorus1. CHASIEMPIS SANDVICENSIS (Latham). Neither Mr. Scott Wilson nor Mr. Perkins on the first visit of each to the Sandwich Islands succeeded in obtaining eggs of this long-described species, though its beautiful nests were known to both. The second attempt of each of these gentlemen was more successful, and Mr. Wilson obtained a considerable series of specimens. I find they measure from *82 to *87 by from *58 to •62 inch. It would be useless to figure them or to describe them otherwise than by saying that they might pass perfectly for eggs of a Parus or Sitta. The nests are beautiful structures, almost always built in a three-pronged fork of a bush, and are thickly studded 'with lichens. 1 I may note that Dr. Menzbier (Ibis, 1893, pp. 371, 372) considers that Turdus varius probably breeds in the Ural Mountains, though it seems as yet to have been found there only after midsummer. |