SEMOJV'S RESEARCHES IN AUSTRALIA. 



21 



to every effort to educate and civilize them. Several of these na- 

 tives soon returned, and among them " Old Jimmy," whom he 

 learned to esteem as " the best and most faithful of assistants " ; he 

 afterward had many other Australian and Papuan aborigines in his 

 service, and, through daily intercourse with them, became thor- 

 oughly acquainted with their 

 habits of life, racial peculiari- 

 ties, tribal organization, re- 

 ligious ideas, and superstitions. 

 After carrying on his explo- 

 rations with remarkable success 

 for nearly a year and a half in 

 Australia, New Guinea, and the 

 Moluccas, Professor Semon re- 

 turned home via Java and India 

 in the spring of 1893. The 

 strictly scientific results of his 

 researches during this period 

 are now being published with Mackenzie. 



the aid of several collabo- 

 rators in a serial work entitled Zoologische Forschungsreisen in 

 Australien und dem Malayischen Archipel (Jena: Gustav Fischer), 

 and to be completed in some twenty-six numbers, of which six have 

 already appeared. Meanwhile, he has given to the public a more 

 comprehensive and popular record of his experiences and observations 

 in a single volume, containing a mass of most interesting facts and 

 reflections, and written in an exceedingly lucid and lively style 

 (Im australischen Busch und an den Kiisten des Korallenmeeres. 

 Mit 85 Abbildungen und 4 Karten. Leipzig: Engelmann, 1896. 

 Pp. xvi, 569. Price, 15 marks). We may add that the collection 



Oars or New Guineans. 



of specimens made by Professor Semon is so extensive and extremely 

 characteristic as to render the Zoological Museum in Jena the very 

 best place in the world for studying the natural history of the 

 regions he explored. Indeed, it is so unique that not long since 

 an Australian zoologist came to the picturesque university town on 

 the Saale for the purpose of examining one of the fauna of his 

 native land. 



