ON THE NEW-GUINEA MAMMALS. 161 



NOTE XIV. 

 ON THE NEW-GUINEA MAMMALS. 



Dr. P. A, JEJSTTINK. 



December 1906. 



New-Guinea has been called by A. R. Wallace the greatest 

 terra incognita that still remains for the naturalist to explore, 

 and the only region where altogether new and uniraagined 

 forms of life may perhaps be found. This he wrote in 1869 

 and we now living in 1906 can, as a matter of fact, un- 

 derline this sentence, for, notwithstanding the number of 

 new forms has amazingly increased during the latest years 

 of the 19^^ century, this largest of all islands remains 

 still a terra incognita, as all the explorers have collected 

 merely in a few localities here and there along the coasts, 

 the interior of this enormous island remains a gigantic 

 white patch on the map ; we do not undervalue Dr. A. 

 B. Meyer's crossing the island from the Geelvink-bay 

 southwards, nor the english exploration of the Fly-river 

 a. s. 0., but a look at the map — and we still must confess 

 that, relatively spoken, nearly nothing has been done to 

 decrease the terra incognita. We are convinced however that 

 the way to the interior of the large island is entangled with 

 all kinds of difficulties, nay that it generally is not without 

 peril of life to live some time on the coast, and we therefore 

 appreciate every endeavor to explore that most interesting 

 island. The explorations of the latest 25 years have enriched 

 our knowledge of the New-Guinea Mammals really in an 



Notes from the Leyden JMuseum, Vol- XX"\^III- 



11 



