154 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
is plentiful at Port Moresby. The South Sea Island kava 
(piper methysticum ) grows wild. Among the products of © 
one district are enumerated raspberries, strawberries , nutmegs, 
tobacco, capsicums and indigenous cotton. 
Mr. CHanmErs fives the native names of several species of 
wild animals, but as he did not see them, was unable to iden- 
tify them. “The Jakoni, Gomina and Ayila are very large 
and fierce. The Papara and Gadana are small but fierce.” 
In the existence of these Mr. Grit does not appear to believe, 
for he says that the wild pig (sus papuensis ) is the largest 
and, excepting the dingo, almost the only true mammal in 
New Guinea, all the rest being marsupials. There are two 
species of wallaby in New Guinea and “two species of the 
hithertostrictly Australian genus Hchidna, or spiny ant-eater, 
have been discovered,” (Tachyglossus Bruijnii and T. Lawesii). 
Both forms are oviparous. ‘The Hchidna produces a single 
ego at a birth, thus supplying, as Mr. Git remarks, the con- 
necting hak between reptiles and mammalia. 
Mr. Gini discusses the relative advantages of three places 
as the capital of British New Guinea. These are Hall Sound, 
Port t Moresby, and Kerepunu. ‘The first is near a vast extent 
of fertile land, but swamps make it unhealthy; the second is 
shut off by fae from the interior; and the third though 
giving access to a valuable district is so thickly inhabited that 
to obtain a site would be difficult. The advantages of a safe 
harbour tell in favour of Port Moresby, but probably the head- 
quarters of the High Commissioner will be the deck of his 
steamer for some time to come. The density of the population 
and the attachment of the natives to their holdings will make 
colonisation in New Guinea a very different undertaking to 
that which lay before early settlers in Australia. At South 
Cape Mr. Gitt was told that “every acre of soil along this 
part of New Gninea has its owner. <A native desirous of 
making a plantation on another person’s land can do so by 
asking permission, or by a stipulated payment, but only for 
once.” The cultivation of jute is mentioned as an industry 
likely to be valuable in the future, aspecimen of New Guinea 
jute, submitted to “‘a well-known Dundee firm,” having been 
pronounced to be the finest jute in the world. 
