CHAPTER XXXIX. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PAPUAN ISLANDS. 



^EW GUINEA, with the islands joined to it by a 

 shallow sea, constitute the Papuan group, charac- 

 terised by a very close resemblance in their peculiar forms 

 of life. Having already, in my chapters on the Aru Islands 

 and on the Birds of Paradise, given some details of the 

 natural history of this district, I shall here confine myself 

 to a general sketch of its animal productions, and of their 

 relations to those of the rest of the world. 



New Guinea is perhaps the largest island on the globe, 

 being a little larger than Borneo. It is nearly fourteen 

 hundred miles long, and in the widest part four hundred 

 broad, and seems to be everywhere covered with luxuriant 

 forests. Almost everything that is yet known of its 

 natural productions comes from the north-western penin- 

 sula, and a few islands grouped around it. These do not 

 constitute a tenth part of the area of the whole island, 

 and are so cut off from it, that their fauna may well be 

 somewhat different ; yet they have produced us (with a 

 very partial exploration) no less than two hundred and 



