NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE. 



Vol. m. SEPTEMBEK, 1896. No. 3. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOaY OF THE 

 PAPUAN ISLANDS. 



By the HON. WALTER ROTHSCHILD and ERNST HARTERT. 



(The work of these " contributions " is so divided that Walter ]\'uthschild works out 

 the families Paradiseidae, Ptilonorhynchidae, and Rallidae, while E. Hartert is 

 responsible for the rest.) 



IV.» 



LIST OF A COLLECTION AlADE BY ALBERT S. :\1EEK ON FERGUSSON, 

 TROBRIAXD, EGU.AI. AND WOODLARK I.^^LAND:^. 



MR. ALBERT 8. ]\IEEK, an energetic young collector, spent some time on the 

 above-named islands, where, besides collecting insects and other natural 

 history specimens, he brought together a most interesting collection of birds, which 

 are specially valuable because many of them are accompanied by their nests and eggs. 

 Though the bird collections are evidently not exhaustive for any of these islands, they 

 greatly enlarge our knowledge of these imperfectly explored regions. 



The bulk of the omis of P'ergusson Island is the same as that of South-Eastorn 

 New Guinea, but some very fine species, such as Paradisea decora, Phonygama 

 huiisteini, Cyclopsittacus virago, perhaps also Antkreptes riieeki and others, are 

 evidently restricted to the D'Entrecasteaux group, while some peculiar species they 

 have in common with other islands east of New Guinea. The omis of the Trobriands 

 and of Egum and Woodlark differs on the whole probably not \ery much from that 

 of PVrgusson. 



In the southern part of Fergusson, where Mr. Meek collected, the mountains 

 rise steeply close to the coast. The spurs are or have been cultivated up to a height 

 of about 1500 feet, but higher up no villages were met with. The island is thickly 

 populated in parts, especially towards a place named Dobu, but a great quantitv of 

 large timber stands in the forests wherever the ground has not been cultivated. The 

 natives are very honest, but they are frightened at even the idea of ascending the 

 higher mountains of their island. 



Kirvirai, Kiriwina, or Kiriwini, the largest island of the Trobriands, is, like the 

 smaller islets of that group, a coral island and (juite flat. Meek tells us that it is 

 very thickly populated, the estimated nimiber of natives being 30, 000. They are a 

 fine-built race and all under one chief, every village again under a sulvchief. Tlie 

 whole island has at one time or another been cultivated, with exception of some 

 extremely rough places on the coast. Where the natives plant gardens they pile the 

 coral into heaps and plant between them. The gardens look much like an English 

 • For Nus. L, II., 111. see antea, pp. 8-20. 



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