( 475 ) 



In his book he writes : " Oq a previous expedition I had been forced by an ontbreak 

 of measles to go away from a fine collecting gronnd. I was now face to face again 

 ■with a notice to quit. I had either to give up the work at a spot which was so 

 promising of good results, or make my boys run the risk of death. The decision 

 ■could only be in the one direction. I decided to start down for the coast." 

 Afcerwards, deploring the fate of his men, Mr. Meek writes : " 1 had become very 

 fond of my boys after seeing them working by the side of the Malay coolies of the 

 Dutch ; and the Dutch people, too, very greatly admired my boys from British New 

 Guinea for their cheerfulness, endurance, and capacity for work. They reckoned 

 they would sooner have fifty of my chaps than a couple of hundred of their own 

 ■coolies." 



As Mr. Meek touched partly entirely new ground and countries where not 

 much collecting had been done, his birds were necessarily of the greatest importance 

 for our knowledge of the avifauna of New Guinea. We described in the following 

 pages and before, in the Bulletins of tiie British Ornithologists' Club and the 

 Omitkologische Monatsbeiichte, not less than twentj'-two new forms, while the 

 collections also contained six of the new forms described shortly before Meek's 

 e.xpedition by Dr. van Oort, and at least three of the fourteen new forms so far 

 named by Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, in the Bulletins vol. x.Kvii., xxix. and xxxi. of the 

 British Ornithologists' Club. Large collections are, however, in the hands of Dr. van 

 Oort, and we may shortly expect a valuable account of them in the Dutch work 

 JS^oi-a Guinea, by Dr. van Oort. Mr. Ogilvie-Grant will, we hope, soon ])ublish a 

 full account of the collections made by the Goodfellow expedition and the more 

 successful one of Dr. Wollaston, who succeeded in reaching the |ice-cap of Carstenz 

 Peak, in the Snow Mountains, so that our knowledge of the birds of these regions 

 will soon be fairly good, though still far from absolutely " final." 



The following are described by us as new from Mr. Meek's recent collections 

 from Southern Dutch New Guinea : Astar cirrhocepkalus papuanus, Charmost/nopsis 

 midtistriata, Charmosf/na stellae goliathina, Nasiterna keiensis viridipectus, 

 Adhomijias spilodera guttata, Foecilodnjas albonotata griseiventris, P. leucops 

 nigro-orhitalis, Machaerirhynchus nigripectus satiiratus, Sericornis mee/d, Andro- 

 j/hilns viridis, Eupetes castanonotus saturatus, Pristorhampus versteri meeki, 

 J^liilemon noraeguineae brevipeimis, Melirrhophetes beljordi griseiroatris, Melipotes 

 gijinnopH goUathi, Packycephala tenebrosa, Packycare Jlavogrisea subaurantia, 

 Fa.lcinellas striatus atratus, Parotia carolae meeki, Paradiqalla brevicauda, 

 I'itofmi meeki. 



Besides these, Mr. Meek collected such rare birds as Pteridopfwra alberti, 

 Lvhuparadisea sericea, Chaetura novaeguineae, of wliich only the type specimen 

 from the Fly Iliver had been known, a second example of Mellopitta gigantea, 

 M'duru.f lorentzi, Clylomyixi insiynis oorti, and many other rare and jjarticularly 

 interesting birds. 



Zoogeographically the collection ig very interesting, the birds being, apart from 

 tlie peculiar forms, partly those of North-western New Guinea, and jiartly the same 

 whicli occur in tiie mountains of South-eastern New Guinea. Mount (Joliatli has 

 pcilmiis more rej)resentativeK of the north-western fauna. Tlie latter moujifaiii and 

 tlie lower ranges of the Snow Mountains have not in all cases the same fainia, as the 

 list of tlie collections will show. 



Besides the birds, Mr. Meek collected, as usual, a wonderl'nl lot of lepidoptera, 

 Among wliich are hundreds of new species, but hitherto only eighty-two Arctiidae, 



