190 [August, 



Humboldt, one of the highest summits in New Caledonia, to 5,360 

 feet. In the north, these mountains are clothed in parts with true 

 forest, which appears to be almost absent in the southern part of the 

 island. 



Noumea is a clean and well laid out town, but the houses are 

 poor in appearance, and mostly built of wood and corrugated iron, 

 while the public buildings, though large and commodious enough, 

 have one and all the aspect of barracks. It contains about 7,000 

 inhabitants, exclusive of the liumerous convict population, who are 

 nearly all quartered on one or two small islands in the harbour. The 

 town boasts of a small Museum, in which the ethnology and mineral 

 products of New Caledonia, and especially the splendid land-shells 

 (Placostj/lus, &c.) for which the island is so famous among 

 conchologists, are well represented ; but the collection of local insects 

 is hardly to be reckoned as even second rate. It is true it contains 

 a few fine Coleoptera and Orthoptera, but these, I believe, came from 

 the more luxuriant northern part of the island, as I could not see nor 

 hear anything of them in the neighbourhood. 



For several miles round Noumea, as is so often the case in 

 Australasia wherever a settlement has been made by civilized man, 

 the native flora has been almost entirely driven out before the 

 inroads of those hardy plants and weeds which always follow in his 

 footsteps. That great pest of tropical cultivation, the Lantana 

 camera — the flowers of which seemed to me here to be less attractive 

 to insects than is usually the case — covers whole acres of ground in 

 riotous luxuriance, and common world-wide Mimosa?, Ferbenacea?, 

 Solanacea?, Composite?, and other intruders, including many of our 

 familiar British wayside weeds, meet the eye at every turn along the 

 roads, and in the few cultivated fields. The English sparrow, bold 

 and familiar as at home, is the commonest bird to be seen about the 

 town, and our large garden snail, Helix aspersa, presumably intro- 

 duced in the first instance to be eaten, is now very plentiful, in the 

 Loyalty Islands as well as here. 



As Noumea was our head-quarters and coaling station during 

 our period of duty in these waters, we made several visits and spent 

 a fair amount of time here, finally leaving for Sydney at the end of 

 September. During this period the weather was very pleasant, fine 

 and sunny, with but little rain, and the heat was at no time very 

 great. The roads were usually exceedingly dusty, and at our first 

 arrival, any pleasure in walking outside the town, or in collecting, 

 was effectually spoiled by the mosquitoes. These creatures, in 



