Letters, Announcements, 
12 / 
an early age, and educated at King^s College, London, of 
which he was made an Honorary Fellow in 186S. On leaving 
King^s College he matriculated at the University of London 
in 1853, and in the following year passed as a supernumerary 
Interpreter for the (Consular Service in China. During his 
residence in China he acted as Vice-Consul and Consul at 
Amoy, Shanghai, Ningpo, and Chefoo, as well as in Formosa. 
His expeditions included :—a journey up the Yangtsze river as 
far as the interior of Szechuen; the circumnavigation of the 
island of Formosa; a visit to Hainan; and a journey to Pekin, 
whither he accompanied, as interpreter, the English forces 
under General Napier and Sir Hope Grant. His last station 
was Chefoo, whither he had gone, with the hope of regaining 
'health, in 1873. His malady, however, increasing, Swinhoe 
quitted China in October 1873, and, retiring from the Consular 
Service on a pension, lived in London till his death. 
During his stay in China, Swinhoe devoted the whole of 
his spare time to working at the natural history of the different 
places at which he resided, ornithology occupying a large 
share of his attention. On the eve of his first departure from 
England he made the acquaintance of our Member, Mr. H. 
Stevenson. It thus came to pass that some of Swinhoe^s first 
collections were consigned to Mr. Stevenson, and that a portion 
of the birds passed into the Norwich Museum, where they 
now are. But during his whole period of work Swinhoe 
always reserved an extensive series of specimens for his private 
collection, and used them for reference in compiling the nume¬ 
rous papers that he was constantly writing on his favourite 
subject. M^hen Swinhoe first began his study of Chinese 
ornithology our knowledge of the birds of that country may 
be said to have been almost nothing. No general account of 
the birds of China had ever been published ; and all that w^as 
known of them was of the most fragmentary description. 
The pages of the ^ Proceedings of the Zoological Society ’ and 
of this Journal testify to Swinhoe'^s unremitting energy at his 
favourite subject. Of all the papers he wrote on it, the Be- 
vised List of Chinese Birds,published in the ^ Proceedings ’ 
