THE EOMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



half of the Australian continent is within trw 

 tropics, and this is absolutely virgin ground to 

 the naturalist ; but what we know of the poverty 

 of the Australian fauna does not encourage any 

 extravagant expectation of novelties, even from so 

 vast an expanse of intertropical country: some 

 new genera of marsupial mammalia, and a good 

 many birds and reptiles, may possibly remain to 

 be discovered. Papua, if it is indeed continuous 

 land and not a group of islands, is the most 

 promising region in this quarter to tb.3 naturalist; 

 it is a land of hope, immense in area, and covered 

 with virgin forest, producing birds and insects the 

 most magnificent in the world, and yet only just 

 glimpsed here and there on the coast. We may 

 expect great things from it when explored ; and 

 cannot but hope that Mr. Wallace, whose longings 

 have just been recorded, may yet find opportunity, 

 with safety to himself, of satisfying the desire of 

 his heart. 



The interior of China is a great region scarcely 

 seen by an European eye; and its mountainous 

 districts especially are doubtless rich in animal 

 and vegetable productions as yet unknown to 

 science. But the incredibly crowded condition of 

 its human population, and the diligence with 

 which every available inch of land is cultivated, 

 are circumstances which militate against the ex- 

 istence of wild animals and plants.* Japan will 



* Mr. Wallace, writing from Lombok, one of the Sunda Isles, 

 removed but a few degrees from the equator, thus complains of 

 the antagonism of cultivation to natural history: "There is 

 nothing but dusty roads and paddy fields for miles around, pro- 

 ducing no insects or birds worth collecting. It is really aston- 

 ishing, and will be almost incredible to many persons at home, 

 that a tropical country, when cultivated, should produce so little 

 for the collector. The worst collecting-ground in England 

 would produce ten times as manv species of beetles as can be 

 266 



