對於十九世紀的歐美讀者而言，褔爾摩沙是塊未知而陌生的領土（terra incognita）。在此時空下，英國駐打狗第一任領事斯文豪（Robert Swinhoe, 1836-1877）和美國探險家史蒂瑞（Joseph Beal Steere, 1842-1940）先後造訪了褔爾摩沙的打狗地區（亦即現今的高雄），包括了猴山（即今壽山）、哨船頭、打狗港、進港水道、旗後等地，並詳實描述、記錄了打狗的地理風貌、地勢環境、風土民情以及動、植物生態。此文聚焦於斯文豪和史蒂瑞的自然史書寫（natural history writing），以生態批評中的自然史論述（the discourse of natural history）以及環境人文（environmental humanities）的方法學來探討十九世紀中葉的英國和美國自然史作家如何為歐美大陸以外土地——特別是褔爾摩沙的打狗港一帶——建構詳細的科學知識與文化知識，特別是建構在地的「打狗知識」。藉此 探討，此文欲勾勒一個十九世紀中、後葉打狗地區的文化地景之局部藍圖，呈現英美旅者在海外所建構的博物誌知識 （natural historical knowledge）。

For most mid-nineteenth-century Europeans and Americans, the island of Formosa was little-known. To explore this terra incognita, Robert Swinhoe, an English traveling naturalist and scientist who worked as the first consul in Takau, visited Apes’ Hill and Takau (now Kaohsiung) in 1858, and in 1873 Joseph Beal Steere, an American explorer and natural historian, also traveled in Takau. Both Swinhoe and Steere made observations, collected specimens, and documented the virtually unknown landscapes and species in Takau and Apes’ Hill. Mostly written in the form of travel journals, the works of Swinhoe and Steere were pioneering writings that delineated Takau’s flora and fauna and recorded the natural history of Takau in the mid-nineteenth century. Focusing on the works of Swinhoe and Steere, this article examines the following questions: In their travel diaries, how do Swinhoe and Steere describe Apes’ Hill and report their scientific observations on Takau’s natural world and its nonhuman inhabitants? How might the discourse of natural history relate to non-fictional travel narrative and science narrative? How do the traveling natural histories of Swinhoe and Steere document Takau’s landscapes, plants and animals (such as the Formosan Rock Monkey)? When objectively narrating their scientific discovery about Takau, how do Swinhoe and Steere express their environmental awareness or ecological sensibility? By exploring these questions, this study argues that through their natural historical discourses Swinhoe and Steere effectively construct the natural historical knowledge for Takau.