348^ MR. R. SWINHOE ON THE MAMMALS OF FORMOSA. [DeC. 9* 



not less than 80 miles. It is nearly equally divided by the tropical 

 line, and in entire area is about equal to Ireland. One-third of the 

 island, comprising the greater part of the western side, consists of 

 level land ; the rest, of undulated and mountainous country, the 

 peaks of some of the ridges attaining a height of 1 2,000 feet, and being 

 covered with perennial snow. This island was till lately a sealed book 

 to us, the few naturalists who had hitherto visited it having had no 

 opportunities of penetrating into the interior. To my researches last 

 year good fortune cleared the way ; and on the opening of a port in 

 Formosa by treaty, I had the pleasure of being appointed the pioneer- 

 ing consul to it. I had on two previous occasions visited the island, 

 — the first time rather venturously, in a native lorcha, in March 1856, 

 when I spent a fortnight in Hongsan in the north-west ; and a 

 second time on a voyage of discovery in H.M.S. 'Inflexible,' which 

 lasted a month, during which time we completely circumnavigated 

 the island, touching and making a short stay at all the most inter- 

 esting places. In both these expeditions my efforts had been re- 

 warded with the discovery of some novelties ; I was therefore the more 

 determined, on my being located on the island this last time, to carry 

 on my explorations with redoubled vigour. I did not quite complete 

 a year of office in Formosa before sickness compelled me to return to 

 England. From July to November 1S61 I sojourned in the south- 

 west, in or near the city of Taiwanfoo ; and from December to May 

 I spent in the north-west district of Tamsuy. During these brief 

 seasons, I must confess, I laboured very hard in the cause of natural 

 history ; and though my researches do not enable me to give any- 

 thing like a complete list of the mammals of the island, yet I think 

 I have done my best to take off the cream in the shape of novelties. 

 But in my series many widely distributed families are not represented, 

 — the Mustelidce and Muridce, for instance. Doubtless some spe- 

 cies of the Weasel group must occur, though I met with or heard of 

 none. Moreover, there must surely be some examples of the Rat 

 group ; but, beyond the cosmopolitan Mus decumanus, I found none. 

 My series of Vespei-tilionidcB, too, must be deficient from the difficulty 

 in procuring specimens ; but this I will leave Mr. Tomes to deplore. 

 There must also be a Fox in the island. The marine mammals I 

 had no opportunity of collecting ; but the distance from the coast of 

 China is not sufficiently great to warrant one to expect distinctness 

 of species. I heard of a large Whale, some 60 feet long, that was 

 stranded on a sand-spit below Taiwanfoo, and demolished by the na- 

 tives, I did not see the animal, but I imagine it was of the same spe- 

 cies that is not uncommon, during May, in the Straits of Namoa, close 

 to the mainland, and which I take to be a Balcenoptera — perhaps the 

 B. arctica, noted also from Japan. In my present article I have 

 been enabled to bring before the Society eighteen mammals from the 

 island of Formosa. All of these, with the exception of the Hogdeer 

 and the Hare, are mountain animals, and consequently of a mountain 

 type, — those that are identical with species found in China being 

 generally darker and of more lively tints, and those that differ more 

 resembling forms from the Himalayan Mountains than their represen- 



