Robert Swinhoe
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
who worked as a Consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
in Formosa
Formosa
Formosa or Ilha Formosa is a Portuguese historical name for Taiwan , literally meaning, "Beautiful Island". The term may also refer to:-Places:* Formosa Strait, another name for the Taiwan Strait...
. He discovered many Southeast Asian birds and several, such as Swinhoe's Pheasant
Swinhoe's Pheasant
Swinhoe's Pheasant, Lophura swinhoii, is a bird of the pheasant subfamily of Phasianidae family that is endemic to Taiwan, where it inhabits primary broadleaved forest and mature secondary forest at 200-2,300 m. It was sometimes referred to as the unofficial "national bird" of Taiwan, but the...
, are named after him.
Biography
Swinhoe was born in Calcutta, IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. There is no clear record of the date of his arrival in England, but it is known he attended the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
, and in 1854 joined the China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
consular corps.
He was stationed to the remote port of Amoy
Amoy
Xiamen, or Amoy, is a city on the southeast coast of China.Amoy may also refer to:*Amoy dialect, a dialect of the Hokkien lects, which are part of the Southern Min group of Chinese languages...
, some 300 miles to the northeast of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, in 1855. While at this port he mastered not only the Chinese language (both official Mandarin and the local Hokkien
Min Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
). but he also initiated a detailed and authoritative understanding of the ornithology of eastern China. In March, 1856, Swinhoe made an "adventurous" visit to the camphor districts of NW Formosa on board a lorcha, a hybrid vessel utilizing a European hull and Chinese rigging. Whether this was an official or personal visit is unknown, but he made mention of this on several occasions through the rest of his published career. While at Amoy he courted and married Christina Stronach, the daughter of a Scottish missionary, in 1857.
In June and July 1858 Swinhoe participated in the circumnavigation of Formosa on board HMS Inflexible in search of British and American castaways. He served as translator as well in two subsequent British actions against the Chinese in North China in 1858 and 1860, the latter resulting in his book, The North China Campaign of 1860 (London, 1861), his personal account of the Second Opium War
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860...
.
In 1860 Swinhoe was named as the first European consular representative to the island of Formosa
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
(Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
). Delays prevented him from physically obtaining that post until 1861. On July 2 of that year Swinhoe and his assistant, George C. P. Braune, arrived at the prefectural capital, the southern city of Taiwan-fu (today's Tainan City). Shoaling of the harbor at Taiwan-fu prompted him to re-establish the British consulate to the northern port of Tamsui, where the bulk of foreign trade occurred. He published several articles on his first harried days as British representative on Formosa, and as well numerous others on the rich wildlife of this isolated island.
Subsequently he served as consul at Amoy
Amoy
Xiamen, or Amoy, is a city on the southeast coast of China.Amoy may also refer to:*Amoy dialect, a dialect of the Hokkien lects, which are part of the Southern Min group of Chinese languages...
, Ningpo, and Chefoo, all on the mainland of China. He at various times during his career served as 'roving consul' for the British plenipotentiary in China for Great Britain, Rutherford Alcock
Rutherford Alcock
Sir Rutherford Alcock KCB was the first British diplomatic representative to live in Japan.-Early life:Alcock was the son of the physician, Dr. Thomas Alcock, who practised at Ealing, near London. As he grew up, Alcock followed his father into the medical profession...
. His duties in this capacity required an exploring visit to the second of China's great islands, Hainan
Hainan
Hainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, of its land mass is Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
, and as well a journey up the Yangtze River
Yangtze River
The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...
to Chungking, in Szechuan Province
Sichuan
' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...
, to help determine steamship navigability of that river. All the while he was stationed at those various postings, he retained the Formosan consulship, and indeed did not relinquish it until his retirement from the service of his government, in 1873. He spent his spare time in China collecting natural history specimens, and as the area had not previously been open to westerners many of the items he collected were new to science. As he was primarily an ornithologist many of his new discoveries were bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s, but he also found new fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
, mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
s and insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s. He returned to England in 1862 with his collection. Many of the birds were first described in John Gould
John Gould
John Gould was an English ornithologist and bird artist. The Gould League in Australia was named after him. His identification of the birds now nicknamed "Darwin's finches" played a role in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...
's Birds of Asia (1863).
Natural history
At a young age he had been interested in birds and had made a small collection of British birds, nests and eggs. He corresponded with Henry Stevenson and one of his first publications was in 1858, the year in which Charles DarwinCharles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
and Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
published their paper on natural selection. Swinhoe took to the ideas of Darwin and in 1872 he named a species (now a subspecies) after Darwin (Pucrasia macrolopha darwini). He was a regular published in The Ibis
Ibis (journal)
Ibis, subtitled the International Journal of Avian Science, is the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the British Ornithologists' Union. Topics covered include ecology, conservation, behaviour, palaeontology, and taxonomy of birds. The editor-in-chief is Paul F. Donald. The journal is published by...
after 1860 and later to the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London
Zoological Society of London
The Zoological Society of London is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats...
.
During his travels he studied the birds and mammals apart from studying the local culture. He collected both live animals and specimens on his travels and regularly sent them to the London Zoo
London Zoo
London Zoo is the world's oldest scientific zoo. It was opened in London on 27 April 1828, and was originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study. It was eventually opened to the public in 1847...
. The first Pere David's Deer
Père David's Deer
Père David's Deer, Elaphurus davidianus, also known as the Milu , is a species of deer known only in captivity. It prefers marshland, and is believed to be native to the subtropics of China. It grazes on a mixture of grass and water plants. It is the only extant member of the genus Elaphurus...
in Europe came from him.
His primary interest was however in birds and on these he corresponded extensively with Edward Blyth
Edward Blyth
Edward Blyth was an English zoologist and pharmacist. He was one of the founders of zoology in India....
. Around 1871 he started suffering from partial paralysis and he moved to the Chefoo which he called the Scarborough of China. He was forced by his ill health to leave China in October 1875. From his home in Chelsea he continued to publish notes and his last publication in the Ibis was the description of a new genus and species of bird Liocichla steerii. He died at the age of 41, presumably of syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
.
P. L. Sclater
Philip Sclater
Philip Lutley Sclater was an English lawyer and zoologist. In zoology, he was an expert ornithologist, and identified the main zoogeographic regions of the world...
described him as one of the most industrious and successful exploring naturalists that have ever lived and after his death, A. R. Wallace wrote due to Mr. Swinhoe's own exertions...there is probably no part of the world (if we except Europe, North America, and British India) of whose warm-blooded vertebrates we possess fuller or more accurate knowledge than we do of the coast districts of China and its islands.
His collection of 3700 specimens was bought by Henry Seebohm
Henry Seebohm
Henry Seebohm was an English steel manufacturer, and amateur ornithologist, oologist and traveller.Seebohm was born in Bradford. His interest in natural history led him to travel widely, in Greece, Scandinavia, Turkey, and South Africa...
and this was subsequently bequeathed to the Liverpool Museum. A number of species were named after Swinhoe, including Swinhoe's Storm-petrel
Swinhoe's Storm-petrel
Swinhoe's Storm Petrel, Oceanodroma monorhis also known as Swinhoe's Petrel is a small seabird of the storm-petrel family Hydrobatidae....
, which he first described himself in 1867, and the Yangtze giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoeii), a specimen of which John Edward Gray
John Edward Gray
John Edward Gray, FRS was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray ....
received from Swinhoe in 1873.
Robert's brother, Colonel Charles Swinhoe
Charles Swinhoe
Colonel Charles Swinhoe was an English naturalist and lepidopterist, who served in the British Army in India...
was a founding member of the Bombay Natural History Society
Bombay Natural History Society
The Bombay Natural History Society, founded on 15 September 1883, is one of the largest non-governmental organizations in India engaged in conservation and biodiversity research. It supports many research efforts through grants, and publishes the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. Many...
in India.