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PREFACE 



MR. MEEK'S connection with the Tring Museum 

 dates back from the time when he tried his hands 

 at ranching in Queensland. The collections he sent 

 home from that country and which I acquired from 

 his father pleased me so much that I gladly accepted 

 his offer of making for my museum collections in 

 the Papuan countries, being confident that A. S. 

 Meek had the pluck and power of endurance necessary 

 for a collector in those unexplored regions. My 

 expectations have been amply fulfilled. The places 

 visited have been numerous, the collections exceed- 

 ingly rich in novelties and, last but not least, our 

 intercourse with the traveller has always remained 

 most pleasant. 



When A. S. Meek left Queensland for New Guinea 

 about the middle of the nineties, most of the places 

 he proposed to visit were very little known. Since 

 Wallace's famous exploration of the Malay Archi- 

 pelago nearly all the travellers who went east with 

 the special object of making zoological collections 

 selected the Sunda Islands and Moluccas as their 

 field of exploration, only a few of them going further 

 east to the western and southern parts of New 



