XX NEW GUINEA AND ITS INHABITANTS 4l9 



from that continent, are there any open or thinly wooded 

 spaces, and here alone do we find some approach to the 

 Australian type of vegetation in the occurrence of 

 numerous eucalypti and acacias. Everywhere else, how- 

 ever, even in the extreme south-east peninsula and 

 adjacent islands, the vegetation is essentially Malayan; 

 but Dr. Beccari, who collected plants extensively in the 

 north-western peninsula and its islands, was disappointed, 

 both as regards its variety and novelty. On the Arfjik 

 mountains, however, he found a very interesting sub- 

 alpine or temperate flora, consisting of araucarias, 

 rhododendrons, vacciniums, umbelliferae, and the Antarctic 

 genus Drimys. The forests of New Guinea are every- 

 where grand and luxuriant, rivalling those of Borneo, and 

 of Brazil in the beauty of their forms of vegetable life ; 

 and we cannot consider the collections yet made as 

 affording more than very imperfect samples of the trea- 

 sures they contain. 



Mammals of New Guinea. 



The animal life of this great island is better known and 

 is perhaps more interesting. Its terrestrial mammalia 

 are, however, singularly few, and, with the exception of a 

 peculiar kind of wild pig, all belong to the marsupial 

 tribe or the still lower monotremes of Australia. The 

 tigers, apes, and buffaloes described in the fictitious 

 travels of Captain Lawson, are here as much out of their 

 real place as they would be in the Highlands of Scotland ; 

 while the tracks of large animals, supposed to be rhinoceros 

 or wild cattle, actually discovered by recent travellers, are 

 now ascertained to be those of the cassowary, which, so far 

 as we yet know, is the largest land-animal of New Guinea. 

 Large birds were also seen and heard, whose spread of 

 wing was estimated at sixteen or twenty feet, and which 

 beat the air with a sound compared to the puff of a loco- 

 motive ; but these are found to be only a well-known horn- 

 bill of very moderate dimensions. In place of these 

 myths, however, we have some very interesting realities, 

 the most remarkable, perhaps, being the tree-climbing 

 kangaroos of rather large size, which, although but slightly 



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