( S8 ) 



Except a few old women, the people of Ron were, at the time of Doherty's visit, 

 all dead of cholera or run away. 



" Ron is the largest island in the sonth of Geelviuk Bay, thongh its area is not 

 over sixty or seventy sqnare miles. It is practically a part of Wandammen, the long 

 narrow strait being less than a mile wide, though fairly deep. Ron is exceedingly 

 steep and rugged, the coast generally rising almost precipitonsly, but the hills seem 

 nowhere to reach 2000 feet. The island seems composed of ancient stratified rocks. 

 There are many streams and waterfalls. The forest is not so fine as in many other 

 places, the soil being rather thin. The population is generally considerable. It is 

 mixed of the Wandammen-Wandesi tribe and Maforese immigrants, and slaves 

 from the east coast of the bay." (Written 1890.) 



Schoaten Islands.* This is the name for the two islands Eorrido and Biak, 

 which on older raa{)s are generally shown as one continuous island under the name 

 of Misory or Misori. Biak and Korrido together have an area of over 120(1 square 

 miles. The two islands are separated by a shallow winding strait. Biak itself is 

 sometimes called Bosnek. Korrido is exceedingly mountainons, the hills reaching 

 4000 feet. 



Doherty sent collections from both islands. 



Mafor or Mefor. This island in the Geelvink Bay is also variously called 

 Mambarri, Remand, Niimfnr, Nufor, Mef6r and M'f6r. Doherty writes: — "The 

 area, according to the chart, is rather over 100 sqnare miles, but it is said to 

 be much larger. It is entirely coralline, so far as I am aware, the height never 

 exceeding 300 feet. The coasts are precipitous and generally greatly overhanging, 

 which gives them a very curious aspect. The coral is the sharpest and most 

 difficnlt to walk on I have ever seen, far worse than that of Sumba (cf. Nov. 

 ZooL. III. p. .577). The population is considerable, the coasts being generally 

 held by the fierce Biakers, who cultivate next to nothing, but live by the sea ; 

 the tnie Maforese, the original colonisers of Dorey Bay, who have been obliged 

 to retire into the interior, to live on vegetables. Their long houses in the sea, like 

 boats upside down, as Wallace says, were all burnt, but they have built very similar 

 ones at the toj) of the clitfs in three places on the south-west coast, at one of which, 

 Su^r, 1 made my headquarters. The Maforese are among the most lirutal and 

 reiralsive savages that I have ever seen, but they have not the reputation for 

 treachery and pure love of murder which the Biakers and Ansusis possess in so 

 high a degree. Dutch intlnenee there is none. Thanks to the guns given to the 

 natives to shoot birds with, you hear of nothing bnt massacre after massacre, and 

 island after island left uninhabited." (Written 1896.) 



Doherty sent a good number of skins from Mafor. 



Jobi or Jappen Island. We have, besides, some skins from Dr. Gnillemard 

 of the M<irchi'xa, some bought from milliners, evidently re])rcsenting Jobi forms, 

 and some from Bruijn's hunters, a good collection from Jobi made by William 

 Doherty. 



Jobi is a large island of about luOO square miles. Quite a surprising numljer 

 of separate forms have rightly been described from Jobi (Salvadori, A. B. Meyer, 

 etc.), though some of them have recently been discovered also along the north coast 

 of New Guinea to western Kaiser Wilhelm's Land. The following extracts from 



* There is also a group of small islets along the coast of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, opposite the Kaiserin 

 Augusta River, which on some maps are called Hchouten Islands, and must not be confounded with 

 those in the Geelvink Bay. 



