428 THE NATURAL HISTORY [chap, xxxix. 



fifty species of land birds, almost all unknown elsewhere, 

 and comprising some of the most curious and most beauti- 

 ful of the feathered tribes. It is needless to say how much 

 interest attaches to the far larger unknown portion of this 

 great island, the greatest terra incognita that still remains 

 for the naturalist to explore, and the only region where 

 altogether new and unimagined forms of life may perhaps 

 be found. There is now, I am happy to say, some chance 

 that this great country will no longer remain absolutely 

 unknown to us. The Dutch Government have granted a 

 well-equipped steamer to carry a naturalist (Mr. Eosen- 

 berg, already mentioned in this work) and assistants to 

 New Guinea, where they are to spend some years in cir- 

 cumnavigating the island, ascending its large rivers as 

 far as possil;)le into the interior, and making extensive 

 collections of its natural productions. 



The Mammalia of New Guinea and the adjacent islands, 

 yet discovered, are only seventeen in number. Two of 

 these are bats, one is a pig of a peculiar species (Sus 

 papuensis), and the rest are all marsupials. The bats 

 are, no doubt, much more numerous, but there is every 

 reason to believe that whatever new land Mammalia may 

 be discovered will belong to the marsupial order. One 

 of these is a true kangaroo, very similar to some of the 

 middle-sized kangaroos of Australia, and it is remarkable 

 as being the first animal of the kind ever seen by Euro- 



