264 report— 1884. 



has been enormously enlarged to the north by the inclusion of the great 

 island of Papua, which is to a great extent Australian in its biology, and 

 by tbat of sundry other islets to the north-east and north-west. It is 

 under this point of view that Mr. Forbes's collections are so important. 

 It is true that for the most part they consist of what are generally 

 known as coral-island plants. . . . But besides this there are some 

 peculiar forms, and there are two plants of extraordinary interest which 

 I would simply instance as being typical, one of the New Hebridean and 

 one of the Australian flora. It so happened that these two plants 

 belonged to unispecitic genera. . . . The existence of these plants 

 pointed to some old communication between these particular islands.' ' 



An orchid brought home in a living state has flowered at Kew, and 

 proves to be Dendwhium Phalcenopsis, Fitzg., hitherto only known from 

 Queensland. 



No detailed nccount of the ethnographical collection has yet been 

 published ; but as the collection has heen deposited in the British 

 Museum, a description of the Timor Laut objects will doubtless appear in 

 the catalogue of the Ethnological Department, while the more interest- 

 ing will be fiouied in Mr. Forbes's forthcoming volume. At the last 

 meeting of the Association at Southport, Dr. J. G. Garson (Report, p. 

 •5GG) read a short account of the crania (now in the British Museum) 

 brought from Larat by Mr. Forbes, which has been published in extenso 

 in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Vol. XIII., and which 

 concludes with the following remarks on the relation of the inhabitants 

 of Timor Laut to those of adjacent countries: ' That the skulls just de- 

 scribed are not those of a pure race is very evident. Two very distinct 

 types can be made out — namely, the brachycephalic and the dolicho- 

 cephalic, the former greatly predominating in number. Both from the 

 information Mr. Forbes has given us as to their appearance, and from the 

 skulls themselves, there is no difficulty in recognising a strong Malay 

 element in the population. The male skull No. 4, and the female No. 6, 

 are typically Malayan in their characters, especially in possessing large 

 open, rounded orbits, and smooth forehead, the superciliary ridges and 

 glabella being almost entirely absent. The other brachycephalic skulls, 

 though not presenting such a striking affinity, agree more or less with 

 this type, but give evidence of mixed characters. The dolichocephalic 

 skull is, on the other hand, markedly of the Papuan type, and corre- 

 sponds so closely as to be undistinguishable from two crania obtained 

 twenty miles inland from Port Moresby, New Guinea, in the College of 

 Surgeons' Museum, also from another from the Solomon Islands. Along 

 with this form of skull, Mr. Forbes informs me, is associated frizzly hair 

 and dark skin. The examination of the cranial characters of the inhabitants 

 of Timor Laut, as illustrated by the skulls before us, shows that the peopling 

 of this island is no exception to what is usually found in the various groups 

 of islands in the Polynesian Archipelago. From its close proximity to* 

 New Guinea, perhaps more of the Papuan element might have been 

 expected.' 



In addition, the Coleoptera sent home have been examined and de- 

 scribed in a recent paper by Mr. C. O. Waterhouse, published in the 

 Zoological Society's ' Proceedings.' The number of species collected was 

 twenty-nine ; of these the following deserve special notice on account of 



1 A detailed account was read at 1 lie Linnean Society, Nov. 6, 1884. 



