NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 37 
Although this portion of New Guinea has hitherto attracted 
the greatest number of travellers, and for more than twenty 
years several Dutch missionaries have lived here, yet the interior 
is the least known,—indeed we might say it is completely un- 
known,—Signor D’Albertis and his companion, Dr. Beccari, being 
as yet the only Kuropeans who have ventured into the interior at 
all. ‘The northern peninsula of New Guinea,” says the author, 
*‘may be regarded by geographers as a virgin country.” 
As regards climate, within so few degrees of the Equator, 
the heat is, of course, great; the rainfall frequent and heavy, and 
the evaporation therefore considerable. The fevers common in 
tropical countries are rife in New Guinea, as the author and his 
companion discovered to their cost ; and many a time was Signor 
D’Albertis lying at death’s door, stricken down by this malignant 
enemy. With a good constitution, however, strengthened by 
judicious doses of quinine, and favoured by more than usual 
good fortune in meeting with assistance at critical junctures, the 
traveller recovered his health again and again, and with fixed 
resolution continued his adventurous journey, at one time going 
ashore to procure food and collect birds and insects, at another 
following the coast to land elsewhere in search of new hunting 
grounds; anon taking up his quarters for weeks in one spot, 
and exploring some rich collecting-ground, where, as at Hatam, 
a village on Mount Arfak, every shot brought down a bird of a 
new species, and every insect picked up was new to him. 
Most remarkable and beautiful were many of the birds and 
insects met with, several of them previously undescribed and 
quite unknown. Of 180 different kinds of birds collected in 
N.W. New Guinea in 1872, thirty proved to be new species. 
Amongst the most noticeable are those of which the author has 
given coloured plates, namely, Lophorina superba, Parotia sex- 
pennis, Drepanornis Albertisti, and Paradisea raggiana. These 
are all Birds of Paradise, vieing with each other in the loveliness 
of their plumage and the brightness of their metallic tints. No 
descriptions can adequately convey an idea of their strange forms 
and beautiful colours, and Signor D’Albertis has therefore done 
well to furnish tinted figures of them. 
New Guinea is very deficient in Mammalia as compared with 
Australia, though this apparent poverty may in part depend on 
our very scanty knowledge. Amongst those met with by Signor 
