NEW GUINEA AND ITS INHABITANTS. 747 



cockatoos; the lories, varied with crimson and purple, green, yellow, 

 and black; while there are strange little crested green parrots no larger 

 than our blue tit — the smallest of the parrot tribe, as the great black 

 cockatoos are the largest. Kingfishers, too, are remarkably abundant, 

 and include several of the fine raquet-tailed species, with plumage of 

 silvery blue, and with white or crimson breasts. Many other groups 

 of birds are also adorned with exceptionally gay colors ; and a careful 

 comparison with the birds of other countries shows that nowhere in 

 the world is there so large a proportion of the whole number of species 

 adorned with brilliant hues. Among insects the same thing occurs, 

 though not in quite so marked a degree ; yet the superior beauty of 

 many groups of beetles over the corresponding groups in Borneo is 

 very distinct ; and the same is to some extent the case with the butter- 

 flies and moths. 



Independently of the beauty and singularity, the great number of 

 species of birds inhabiting New Guinea is very remarkable. Consider- 

 ing that there are no resident collectors in the island, and that oar 

 knowledge is wholly derived from travelers who have spent a few 

 weeks or months on the extreme northern or southern coasts only, 

 leaving the great mass of the interior wholly unexplored, the number of 

 land-birds already known (about four hundred species) is surprising. 

 It is very much greater than the numbers inhabiting the whole of the 

 West Indian Islands, or Madagascar, or the large, rich, and compara- 

 tively well-explored island of Borneo. Even Australia, so much more 

 extensive and so varied in climate and vegetation, has only four hun- 

 dred and eighty-five land-birds ; and when we consider that the cen- 

 tral mass of New Guinea, with its lofty mountain ranges and fine up- 

 land valleys, yet remains absolutely unexplored, it is not improbable 

 that the birds of this wonderful island may be eventually found to be 

 as numerous as those of its parent continent. We may therefore safely 

 assert that in no part of the world has the naturalist such a certainty 

 of making new and important discoveries as in the still unexplored 

 regions of central New Guinea. 



The peculiar race of mankind inhabiting this great island attracted 

 the attention of the earliest voyagers, and the country was called New " 

 Guinea from the resemblance of its inhabitants to the negroes of Africa, 

 removed from them by nearly one third the circumference of the globe. 

 The early Avriters, however, term the people Papuas or Papuans, a 

 Malay term given to them on account of their woolly hair, so different 

 from the perfectly straight hair of almost all the other Eastern races. 

 The Malay word " papuwah " or " puah-puah " means frizzled like wool ; 

 and the Malaj's still call these people "orang papuwah " — woolly -haired 

 men, and the island itself " tana papuwah " — the land of the woolly- 

 haired. 



It is a very remarkable fact that woolly-haired people should be 



