Portrait of the artist's son Edwin Swainson, standing full length in a Brazilian landscape, holding a bow and arrow, his dog asleep at his side

A distinguished naturalist, Swainson travelled to Brazil with Henry Koster in 1816, collecting birds in the neighbourhood of Olinda, Rio San Francisco and Tio de Janeiro before returning to England in 1818. He later studied lithography and published his own plates ('Zoological Illustrations') from 1820. He emigrated to New Zealand in 1837, taking his collections, and revisiting Rio de Janeiro on the voyage out from where he transplanted plants to his new house. An early Hutt Valley (Wellington) settler, for his New Zealand residence see W. Shepherd, Wellington's Heritage, plants, gardens, and landscape, Wellington, 2001, pp.44-49.