576 The Natural History 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PATUAX ISLANDS. 



New Guinea, with the islands joined to it by a shallow sea, 

 constitute the Papuan group, characterized by a very close re- 

 semblance in their peculiar forms of life. Having already, in 

 my chapters on the Aru Islands and on the Birds of Paradise, 

 given some details of the natural history of this district, I 

 shall here confine myself to a general sketch of its animal 

 productions, and of their relations to those of the rest of the 

 world. 



New Guinea is perhaps the largest island on the globe, be- 

 ing a little larger than Borneo. It is nearly fourteen hundred 

 miles long, and in the widest part foiu* hundred broad, and 

 seems to be everywhere covered with luxuriant forests. Al- 

 most every thing that is yet known of its natural productions 

 comes from the north-western i:)eninsula, and a few islands 

 grouped around it. These do not constitute a tenth part of 

 the area of the whole island, and are so cut off from it, that 

 their fauna may well be somewhat different ; yet they have 

 produced us (with a very partial exploration) no less than two 

 hundred and fifty species of land birds, almost all unknown 

 elsewhere, and comprising some of the most curious and most 

 beautiful of the feathered tribes. It is needless to say how 

 much interest attaches to the far larger unknown portion of 

 this great island, the greatest terra incognita that still remains 

 for the naturalist to explore, and the only region where alto- 

 gether new and unimagined forms of life may perhaps be found. 

 There is now, I am happy to say, some chance that this great 

 country will no longer remain absolutely unknown to us. The 

 Dutch Government have granted a well-equipped steamer to 

 carry a naturalist (Mr. Rosenberg, already mentioned in this 

 work) and assistants to New Guinea, where they are to spend 

 some years in circumnavigating the island, ascending its large 

 rivers as far as possible into the interior, and making extensive 

 collections of its natural productions. 



