3-017-241 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Swinhoe's Pheasant, lately added to the collection of the Zoological Society of London, 1865. '...a newly-discovered species, which has been worthily named after its discoverer, Mr. Robert Swinhoe, F.Z.S., her Majesty's Consul in Formosa. "Few of her Majesty's Consuls," says Mr. Gould..."have more assiduously availed themselves of the opportunities afforded them of collecting the birds of the distant regions in which they have been located than Mr. Swinhoe...It is but a just tribute, then, to the merits of this gentleman that so remarkable and beautiful a bird should be named in his honour." To the same gentleman the Zoological Society are likewise indebted for the male specimen of this bird now in their collection, from which this present figure is taken, and which is the only example of this species which has as yet been imported into Europe. In its native state, Swinhoe's pheasant inhabits the high jungles of the interior of the little-known island of Formosa, rarely descending into the lower hills. In size it is somewhat smaller than the common silver pheasant, which it also resembles in its red wattles and in the form of its tail'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.