362 MR. R. SWINHOE ON THE MAMMALS OF FORMOSA, [DcC. 9, 



tliey are said to occur in abundance ; and small herds of them find 

 their way to the lower ranges, 2000 feet and upwards in height. On 

 nearly all the hills I ascended I found the prints of their feet, as well 

 as dung ; but they are so excessively shy that it is very difiicult to 

 get a glimpse of them. At a distance you may occasionally see them 

 in small parties on some tangled grassy crag, whence they no sooner 

 observe you than away they bound with short goat-like leaps, till a 

 projecting rock snatches them from your vision. Their wildness is 

 probably caused by the persecution they receive at the hands of the 

 natives, who relish their flesh, which, however, T found tough and 

 coarse. A supposed medicinal property in their blood, which is said 

 to be efficacious in bad cases of bronchitis, tends, no doubt, to enhance 

 the value of their capture. 



A live adult male was brought to me, with one leg wounded by a 

 ball. The animal was very ferocious, stamping its foot at me and 

 snorting through his nostrils. It drank a great deal, but ate only 

 sparingly of the green food I supplied it with. I might have suc- 

 ceeded in taming it ; but it was in the hot season, and the wounded 

 leg began to fester, and the poor animal seemed in such pain that I 

 was obliged to have it killed. Its iris was yellowish chestnut ; its 

 pupil black, with a horizontal yellowish -brown line running right 

 through it. I do not know the particular cause of this peculiar 

 appearance in the eyes of animals ; but I have observed it pretty 

 generally in all Goats, The high mandarin of the town begged the 

 blood of this animal of me, and esteemed the gift a great favour. 

 He had it spread, in the air, in small cakes, dried, and powdered, and 

 then stowed it carefully away in his medicine-chest. 



The native name for this animal is 8wan Tun, or Shan Yang, which 

 may be taken to mean either Wild or Hill-Sheep or Wild or Hill- 

 Goat. Hence my mistake in my first letters to the Secretary of this 

 Society, when I stated that I was informed of the existence of a Wild 

 Mountain- Sheep in the Island of Formosa. 



17. Cervus taivanus, Blyth, J. A, S, B. xxix. p. 90; Sclater, 

 P. Z. S. 1860, p. :^7Q, et 1862, p. 152, PI, XVI, 



This species was established in 1858, by Mr. Blyth, from the 

 skull of a buck that I sent him. The animal to which, the skull 

 had belonged had been kept, together with some others of the same 

 breed, in a private menagerie at Amoy, whither Chinese junks from 

 Formosa frequently bring these Deer for sale, I am not aware of 

 any Spotted Deer occurring in the Province of Fuhkeen, to which 

 Amoy belongs ; and as the wealthier Chinese have a great partiality 

 for Spotted Deer to adorn their parks, this species is the one most 

 usually sought after in that district, Chinese poetry has frequent 

 allusions to the " Red Deer with its snowy spots ;" and Chinese pic- 

 tures, in almost every well-to-do house, exhibit grotesque though 

 somewhat truthful representations of the antlered brethren. Besides 

 the value attached to Deer as an object of ornament, their price is 

 increased by the medicinal properties attributed to their horns. These 

 appendages, cut off when freshly sprouting, are much prized by the 



