DISTRIBUTION OF MAN. 63 



be to ranking tlie Oriental negroes with tlie African negroes, all the New Guinea blacks are of one 

 race, whether natives of Papua itself, or of any of the numerous islands lying around it. Some 

 authors, doubtless led astray by the apparently parallel, but really most distinct case of the Hill 

 tribes in India, &c., have attempted to make a distinction between the natives of the hills and those of 

 the coast, in Papua and other islands. This distinction is shown by the most trustworthj' authors* to be 

 without foundation, except so far as we have in our own lands a population differing somewhat 

 according to the nature of their occupation and localities. In like manner, the negritos of the Phi- 

 lippine Islands cannot be separated from the other Papuan blacks ; and if it be true that there are 

 negritos in Formosa, (which Mr. Swinhoe's recent observations gives us reason to question), they also 

 without doubt belong to the same race ;t and, lastly, there is an overwhelming weight of testimony 

 that all the oceanic tribes of PoljTiesia belong to the same race. The natives of the different 

 groups of islands, no doubt, have each some pecviliar characters of their own, but all belong to one 

 type, and that type, the black Pajjuan. Some of the islands, such as New Zealand, are indeed sup- 

 posed to have been colonized only very recently, and within the historical epoch ; but if so, they have 

 been colonized from the original black stock. 



There is, jierhaps, more difference when we come to estimate the discrepancies and resemblances 

 between the Papuans and Australians. In doing so, there are various collateral points to be taken 

 into consideration. In the first place, we must remember that although the Papuan Islands, or 

 ■ Austro- Malayan region and the Polj-nesian have nimierous plants and animals peculiar to themselves, 

 both their faunas and floras have, to a considerable extent, an Australian character. In mammals, for 

 example, while the Indian region, including Borneo, Java, Sumatra, &c., possesses no marsupials, but 

 abounds in forms of the most highly developed mammals, the Aixstro-Malayan or Papiian region 

 does not, but has several marsupials ; and Polynesia so far accords -ndth it, that its only mammals 

 belong to an order also found in Australia — the bats. In birds, as Dr. Sclater and Mr. Wallace 

 have shown, although the actual nmnber of species common both to Australia and Papua be not great 

 (about twenty-five out of one hundred and eighty-six)J there is a great affinity in many remarkable 

 genera, and the resemblance extends not only to genera which have been found in both, but also to 

 those which are absent in both, although present in strong force in the neighbouring Indian district. 

 Dr. Giinther has come to similar conclusions as regards the ReptUes and Batrachians. In Ento- 

 mology, Australian relations also occur, some of which (in the Hymenopiera) have been pointed 

 out by Mr. Frederick Smith of the British Museum, § and similar connexions occur in other 

 groups. The botany of Australia and Pajjua, so far as the latter is known (which is not much), has 

 similar points of resemblance. 



The inference to be drawn from these facts is, that as a connexion subsists between the 

 other animals of Papua and those of Australia, there may be one between their human inha- 

 bitants also. Professor Agassiz holds that the distribution of man wiU be found in the main 

 to coincide with the regional distribution of other animals ; and so far as man's tribal distribution 

 goes, the idea is not ^athout warrant. For examjile, the Arctic fauna and flora is nearlj' homo- 



* Modera, " Verbaal van eene Reize naar de Zuid-West X Reckoned from " Catalogue of tlic Mammalia and 



Kust van Nicw-Guinea." Haarlem, 1830. Eaul, op. Birds of New Guinea, in the Collection of the British 



cit. p. 61. Museum," 1859. 



t SwiNHOE, in " Proc. Geog. Soc," vol. viii. p. 26. § F. Smmh, in " Proc. Linn. Soc." vol. v. p. 93, et seq 



(18G3-64). 1861. 



