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Robert Swinhoe
Robert Swinhoe FRS (1 September 1836 – 28 October 1877) was an English diplomat and naturalist who worked as a Consul in Qing-era Taiwan (then known to Westerners as Formosa). He catalogued many Southeast Asian birds, and several, such as Swinhoe's pheasant, are named after him. Biography Swinhoe was born in colonial-era Kolkata (then known as Calcutta) where his father, who came from a Northumberland family, was a lawyer. There is no clear record of the date of his arrival in England, but it is known he attended the University of London, and in 1854, joined the China consular corps. He was stationed to the remote port of Amoy, some 300 miles to the northeast of Hong Kong, in 1855. While at this port, he not only mastered the Chinese language (both official Mandarin and the local Amoy dialect), but 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 no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castaway
A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a desert island, either to evade kidnapping, captors or the world in general. A person may also be left ashore as punishment (Marooning, marooned). The provisions and resources available to castaways may allow them to live on the island until other people arrive to take them off the island. However, such rescue missions may never happen if the person is not known to still be alive, if the fact that they are missing is unknown, or if the island is not mapped. These scenarios have given rise to the plots of numerous stories in the form of novels and film. Real occurrences Thorgisl Icelander Thorgisl set out to travel to Greenland. He and his party were first driven into a remote sound on the east coast of Greenland. Thorgisl, his infant son, and several others were then abandoned there by their thralls. Thorgisl and his party traveled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fish
A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can be grouped into the more basal (phylogenetics), basal jawless fish and the more common jawed fish, the latter including all extant taxon, living cartilaginous fish, cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as the extinct placoderms and acanthodians. In a break to the long tradition of grouping all fish into a single Class (biology), class (Pisces), modern phylogenetics views fish as a paraphyletic group. Most fish are ectotherm, cold-blooded, their body temperature varying with the surrounding water, though some large nekton, active swimmers like white shark and tuna can hold a higher core temperature. Many fish can communication in aquatic animals#Acoustic, communicate acoustically with each other, such as during courtship displays. The stud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight Bird skeleton, skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the common ostrich. There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 Order (biology), orders. More than half are passerine or "perching" birds. Birds have Bird wing, wings whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the Flightless bird, loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemism, endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ornithologist
Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds. It has also been an area with a large contribution made by amateurs in terms of time, resources, and financial support. Studies on birds have helped develop key concepts in biology including evolution, behaviour and ecology such as the definition of species, the process of speciation, instinct, learning, ecological niches, guilds, insular biogeography, phylogeography, and conservation. While early ornithology was principally concerned with descriptions and distributions of species, ornithologists today seek answers to very specific questions, often using birds as models to test hypotheses or predictions based on theories. Most modern biological theories apply ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sichuan Province
Sichuan is a Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Chengdu, and its population stands at 83 million. Sichuan neighbors Qinghai and Gansu to the north, Shaanxi and Chongqing to the east, Guizhou and Yunnan to the south, and Tibet Autonomous Region, Tibet to the west. During antiquity, Sichuan was home to the kingdoms of Ba (state), Ba and Shu (kingdom), Shu until their incorporation by the Qin (state), Qin. During the Three Kingdoms era (220–280), Liu Bei's state of Shu Han, Shu was based in Sichuan. The area was devastated in the 17th century by Zhang Xianzhong's rebellion and the area's subsequent Qing dynasty, Manchu conquest, but recovered to become one of China's most productive areas by the 19th century. During World War II, Chongqing served as the temporary capital o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chongqing
ChongqingPostal Romanization, Previously romanized as Chungking ();. is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the State Council of the People's Republic of China, Central People's Government, along with Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin. It is the only directly administrated municipality located deep inland. The municipality covers a large geographical area roughly the size of Austria, which includes several disjunct urban areas in addition to Chongqing proper. Due to its classification, the municipality of Chongqing is the List of largest cities, largest city proper in the world by population, though Chongqing is not the most populous urban area. The municipality of Chongqing is the only Chinese city with a resident population of over 30 million; however, this number includes its large rural population. In 2020, Chongqing surpassed Shanghai as China's largest municipality by urban populati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yangtze River
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea. It is the fifth-largest primary river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population. The Yangtze has played a major role in the history, culture, and economy of China. For thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking, and war. The Yangtze Delta generates as much as 20% of China's GDP, and the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world. In mid-2014, the Chinese government announced it was building a multi-tier transport network, comprising railways, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hainan
Hainan is an island provinces of China, province and the southernmost province of China. It consists of the eponymous Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea under the province's administration. The name literally means "South of the Sea". The province has a land area of , of which Hainan Island is and the rest is over 200 islands scattered across three archipelagos: Zhongsha Islands, Zhongsha, Xisha Islands, Xisha and Nansha Islands, Nansha. It was part of Guangdong from 1950 to 1988, after which it was made a province of its own and was designated as a special economic zones of China, special economic zone by Deng Xiaoping, as part of the Chinese economic reform program. The Han Han Chinese, Chinese population, who compose a majority of the population at 82%, speak a wide variety of languages including Standard Chinese, Hainanese, Hainam Min, Yue Chinese, Cantonese, Hakka Chinese, etc. Indigenous peoples such as the Hlai people, Hlai, a Kra–Dai l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rutherford Alcock
Sir John Rutherford Alcock, KCB (25 May 1809''London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538–1812''2 November 1897) was the first British diplomatic representative to live in Japan. Early life Alcock was born in St James's, Middlesex, the son of the physician, Dr. Thomas Alcock, who practised at Ealing, near London, and his wife, Mary. As he grew up, Alcock followed his father into the medical profession. In 1836, he became a surgeon in the marine brigade which took part in the Carlist War in Spain, gaining distinction through his services. Alcock was made deputy inspector-general of hospitals. He retired from this service in 1837. Service in China In 1844, he was appointed consul at Fuzhou in China, where, after a short official stay at Amoy, he performed the functions, as he expressed it, "of everything from a lord chancellor to a sheriff's officer." Fuchow was one of the ports opened to trade by the Treaty of Nanking, and Alcock had to perform an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yantai
Yantai, formerly known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of the People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of the Bohai Strait, Yantai borders Qingdao on the southwest and Weihai on the east, with sea access to both the Bohai Sea (via the Laizhou Bay and the Bohai Strait) and the Yellow Sea (from both north and south sides of the Shandong Peninsula). It is the largest fishing seaport in Shandong. Its population was 7,102,116 during the 2020 census, of whom 3,184,299 lived in the built-up area made up of the 5 urban districts of Zhifu, Laishan, Fushan, Muping, and Penglai. Names The name Yantai (."Smoke Tower") derives from the watchtowers constructed on in 1398 under the reign of the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty. The towers were used to light signal fires and send smoke signals, called ''langyan'' from their supposed use of wolf dung for fuel. At the time, the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ningbo
Ningbo is a sub-provincial city in northeastern Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises six urban districts, two satellite county-level cities, and two rural counties, including several islands in Hangzhou Bay and the East China Sea. Ningbo is the southern economic center of the Yangtze Delta megalopolis. The port of Ningbo–Zhoushan, spread across several locations, is the world's busiest port by cargo tonnage and world's third- busiest container port since 2010. Ningbo is the core city and center of the Ningbo Metropolitan Area. To the north, Hangzhou Bay separates Ningbo from Shanghai; to the east lies Zhoushan in the East China Sea; on the west and south, Ningbo borders Shaoxing and Taizhou respectively. As of the 2020 Chinese national census, the entire administrated area of Ningbo City had a population of 9.4 million (9,404,283). Ningbo is one of the 15 sub-provincial cities in China, and is one of the five separate state-planning cities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
