THE FORMOSAN DEER. 
Cervus taimnus. 
Plate XIV. 
For the discovery of this beautiful species of true Deer, as well as of 1 many other novelties of gi-eat interest, 
science is indebted to the exertions of Mr. Robert Swinlioe, H. B. M.’s Vice-Consul in the island of Formosa, 
near the coast of southern China. Before Mr. Swinhoe’s appointment to the new post of Vice-Consul in this 
little-known island, its zoology was quite unknown. During his year of residence in Formosa, Mr. Swinhoe 
not only collected dead specimens in every branch of Natural History, but also shipped several living 
examples of this and another new species of Deer (Cervus swmhoii) home to the Zoological Society. 
As regards the habits of this Deer—which was named taimnus, from Taiwan—the Chinese name for 
Formosa—we cannot do better than give the following extract from Mr. Swinhoe’s paper on the Mammals of 
Foi’mosa, pi-inted in the Zoological Society’s “Proceedings” for 1862. 
“ The central and higher range of mountains, which are in parts covered with perennial snow, are 
inhabited by the Cervus taimnus. These heights abound with large masses of tangled forest, in which the 
gigantic Laurus camphora (the tree whence the drug of commerce, camphor, is distilled) foi-ms no 
inconspicuous part. They are tenanted by tribes of half-clad Indians of the Malay type, blood-thii-sty and 
savage in the extreme, who keep up a constant warfare with the Chinese colonists of the plains, and resist 
with ati’ocity any inroads into their mountain territory. On the lower hills, however, that define the land of 
the colonist from that of the aboriginal, dealings on a friendly footing are carried on in bartering Chinese 
commodities for deers’ horns, venison, and other results of the chase. To these aborigines money has no 
value as a medium of exchange. They live on the tlesh of deer and other wild animals, which they only 
partially broil before eating. They obtain, by barter from the Chinese, matchlocks and gunpowder, which 
they use to wound the deei\ when approached within a few yax-ds by creeping through the thicket. The 
wounded animal is then surrounded by a closing ring of half-naked savages, and, scai-ed by their wild slioxxts, 
falls an easy prey to their metal-lieaded javelins. When powder fails them, they sometimes manage to 
intercept one from a hex’d, and driving him into more open counti’y, scatter a loose and wide-spread ring of 
humanity around him; the ring rapidly closes in as befoi'e. and, as the frightened beast attempts to leap ox- 
break it, spears ai-e hurled into him from all sides, and he can i-arely effect his escape. Other means of 
capture are also practised, but less successfully : the commonest of which, when the beast is required to be 
taken alive, are slip-nooses attached to a stake, and so adjusted, as either to take him by the leg or by the 
horns. But the animal captured xvhen full grown rarely survives, and therefore the young are sought for 
the pui’pose of rearing. They are nurtured xvith great cai-e till a year old, when the lioi-ns begin to form. 
They are then conveyed to the boi-ders and bai-tered to the Chinese, by whom, as I befoi-e stated, they are 
much valued. 
“In the city of Taiwanfoo, I pi-ocured two bucks and a doe of this species, and forwarded them, via 
Hong-Kong to the Gardens of the Society; but unfortunately, only one, a buck, reached England in safety.” 
