Birds. 



8737 



The Ornithology of Formosa, or Taiwan. 

 By Robert Swinhoe, Esq., F.Z.S., F.G.S., &c * 



I will pass at once to the birds. In this, my favourite class, I 

 spared no pains or expense during my comparatively short stay in 

 Formosa, but endeavoured to make as large a collection and gain as 

 much information as possible. I employed a vast number of native 

 hunters and staffers, and collected very large series of every available 

 species and its eggs. I am, therefore, enabled to offer a very fine list 

 of the avifauna of this hitherto unknown island. I do not, of course, 

 presume to say that Formosa has been thoroughly explored ; this 

 would be impossible for one man during so short a stay to accomplish ; 

 but I cannot help arrogating to myself the credit of having taken off 

 the cream of novelty in this branch of Science. A great deal yet re- 

 mains to be learned of the habits of particular species ; and doubtless 

 numbers of fine things still blossom unseen for the discovery of future 

 investigators, and I trust not a few of them may fall to my researches 

 on my speedy return to that scene of my consular labours. I cannot, 

 however, help expressing my regret that Ornithology, as a science, 

 is so little cultivated, and that I myself have received much less en- 

 couragement than I naturally expected after all my earnest endeavours 

 to bring to light the natural productions of a country hitherto almost 

 entirely unknown to civilized men. 



Let me now take a glance at the following list, and make a few 

 remarks that have suggested themselves to me. First in order come 

 the Raptores diurni. These are all also Chinese, with the exception 

 of Spizaetus orientalis, which later research will doubtless discover on 

 the main. Of the owls the Ninox is also Chinese and Japanese, the 

 Scops semitorques of general distribution throughout continental Asia, 

 whereas the other two are peculiar to Formosa. I cannot undertake 

 to discuss each group separately ; my remarks must be more cursory. 

 As in the Mammalia, so among the birds, two facts appear pretty 

 patent — that the animals of the plains and low country are, for the 

 most part, identical with the Chinese species, while those from the 

 mountains of the interior are more of a Himalayan type, and in some 

 cases too similar to be separated. In some of the birds of the plains 

 isolation has worked variation more or less marked. In the Lanius 



* Reprinted from the 'Ibis' of April, ]863, and kindly communicated by the 

 Author. I have given the list entire, but have omitted numerous technical descrip- 

 tions and critical details. — Edward Newman. 



VOL. XXI. 3 i 



