240 Drs. O. Finscli and A. B. Meyer on 



It is quite evident that the stay in tliis mountain-region, 

 where continuous precipitation renders the preparation of 

 birds very laborious and that of plants almost impossible, 

 vras an excessively hard task, and one that could be only 

 undertaken by a man of steel and iron^ who was at the same 

 time on the best terms with the natives, and a person of 

 untiring industry and unbroken strength. Such a man was 

 Karl Hunstein. Avoiding the scattered habitations of the 

 natives, who were by no means friendly, Hunstein passed his 

 time in the bush, and ascended almost daily the mountain- 

 chain about 2000 feet higher, in order to obtain the beautiful 

 Paradise-birds, of the existence of which he became assured 

 by the feathered ornaments worn by the natives. Amongst 

 these were, along with others, the tail-feathers of the male of 

 the Epimachus meyeri, which Hunstein at once recognized as 

 a new species, but of which, in spite of every effort, he only 

 succeeded in obtaining a single female. This bird, as well as 

 Astrarchia stephanice and Paradisornis rudolpM, were only 

 to be met with in a hostile district, into which Hunstein 

 could occasionally penetrate when unnoticed by the natives, 

 and not without danger to his own life. 



The greater part of the collections now to be described were 

 obtained in this interesting and previously untrodden mountain - 

 region, which, on account of the presence of the rhododendron, 

 may be appropriately termed alpine. Very little was col- 

 lected at Moroke, and nothing in the coast-district of Port 

 Moresby, where the vegetation resembles that of Australia in 

 its Eucalypti, or upon the way from Port Moresby to the 

 Astrolabe range. 



It is due to the fortunate incident that one of us, already 

 well known to Hunstein, in whose company he had made 

 a journey in 1882 into the interior from Port Moresby, 

 met the latter in Cooktown, that this very interesting col- 

 lection has found its way to Dresden, and thus to be pub- 

 lished, although after much greater delay than was desirable"^. 



* The typical specimens have been raostl}' placed in the Royal Zoolo- 

 gical Museum at Dresden. 



