494 Messrs. E. L. & E. L. C. Layard on the 



to see the actual forest with other eyes than his own, he is 

 sure that the keen hunting-faculties of the Messieurs Boyer, 

 his kind allies in the pursuit, have left nothing to be disco- 

 vered there. E. L. C. L. has also personally crossed the moun- 

 tain-chain and visited all the east coast as far north as Pam, 

 for the special purpose of seeing what birds could be found 

 there. He saw nothing new ; indeed, during his whole trip 

 he never discharged his gun ! We may therefore, we think, 

 safely conclude that there is very little, if any thing, new to 

 be discovered. 



We now propose to present the brethren of the B. O. U. 

 with a complete list of the birds of New Caledonia, elimi- 

 nating all species which we think have not a fair claim to 

 be included, and giving our reasons for admitting some which, 

 as yet, have not personally occurred to us. 



Before we commence^ however, it will assist our knowledge 

 if we describe briefly the chief characteristics of the island. 



New Caledonia is a long narrow island, extending, say, 150 

 miles in a direction, from its most southerly point, due N.W. 

 In breadth it is about 35 miles. On the eastern side the moun- 

 tains, which form the interior mass, mostly drop into the sea 

 precipitously ; on the western side they change, before they 

 reach the ocean, into rolling rounded hills, covered with a 

 scanty Niaoulie forest, and carpeted with coarse grass, indi- 

 cating a very poor soil ; in some places the forest has disap- 

 peared. The whole of the interior is filled up by abrupt 

 mountain-ranges with hardly any valleys between them. You 

 descend one side of a mountain into the bed of a torrent, 

 cross that, and immediately begin to ascend another moun- 

 tain ! We have heard the ranges likened to the teeth of a 

 saw. Here and there a few mountain-streams have filled up 

 a valley, and debouched through an insignificant plain to the 

 sea ; but these, the only spots fit for cultivation, are few and 

 far between. The mountains are covered Avith forest. Some- 

 times, especially in the ravines, the vegetation is very dense 

 and grand ; at others they are clothed more sparsely, as we 

 have stated above, with the '' gum-trees " of the colony, 

 called the " Niaoulie,^^ which do not grow closely together. 



