LONG-BEAKED ECHIDNA. 



CHAPTER II 



The Animals of New Guinea 



The Papuan province of the Australasian realm comprises the great island of New 

 Guinea, or Papua, together "with the Aru Islands, the Moluccas, the Bismarck 

 Archipelago, the Solomon group, and a number of other small islands situated for 

 the most part in the area known as Melanesia. As might be expected from their 

 geographical position, the fauna of Papua and the associated islands is to a con- 

 siderable degree intermediate between that of Australia and south-western Asia, 

 including as it docs a larger proportion of placental mammals, some of which are 

 of types unknown in Australia. The evidence of some of these must, however, be 

 received with caution, as a certain number of them have almost certainly been intro- 

 duced by man. On the other hand, the distinctness of the Papuan fauna from that 

 of the whole of the rest of the world other than Australia is sufficiently manifested 

 by the presence of egg-laying mammals, marsupials, and cassowaries ; its nearest 

 affinity being, as mentioned in the last chapter, with the fauna of the tropical coast 

 districts of northern Queensland. In discussing the Papuan fauna some repetition 

 of the facts mentioned in the preceding chaper is almost unavoidable. 



The collections made during the last few years have enormously increased our 

 knowledge of the natural history of New Guinea, more especially in the case of its 

 mammals. In the year 1876, for instance, only nineteen species of Papuan mammals 

 were recognised — exclusive of bats ; these being referred to eleven genera — two of 

 which were then believed to occur only on the Aru Islands, and to be unknown on 

 the mainland. One of these Aru types was the mosaic-tailed rat for which 

 the genus Uromys was founded, and as this species was believed to be common to 



