CXIAP. XXXIV,] 



arfak. 



lecoTiimPTiced my dally wnlks in scarcli of insect?, I foini l a 

 great change in the L«n'glibourlmoJ, and one very agret^uble 

 to me. All the time 1 had been laid up the ship's crew 

 and the Javanese soMic^rs who bad been brought in a 

 tender (a sailing ship which had arrived soon after the 

 Ehia), bad been employed cutting down, sawing, and split- 

 ting lai-ge trees for firewood, to enable the steamer to get 

 back to Amhoyna if the coal-'ship did not return ; and they 

 had also cleared a number of wide, straight paths through 

 the forest in various directions, greatly to the astonisliment 

 of the natives, wlio could not make out what it all meant. 

 I had now a variety of walks, and a good deal of dead 

 ^rood on which to search for insects ; but notwithstanding 

 tlie^c advantagtjs, they were not nearly so plentiful as I had 

 found ihem at Sarawak, or Amhoyna, or Batehian, con- 

 firming my opinion that Dorey was not a good locality. 

 It is quite probable, however, that at a station a few tniles 

 in the interior, away from the recently elevated coralline 

 rocks and the influence of the sea air, a much more abun*-. 

 dant harvest migM be obtained. 



One afteiTioon I went on board the steamer to return 

 the captiiin's visit, and was shown some veiy nice sketches 

 (by one of the lieutenants), made on the south coast, and 

 also at the Arfak mountain, to which they had made an 

 excursion. From these and the captain's description, it 

 appeared that the people of Arfak wei e similar to those of 

 Dorey, and I could hear nothing of the straight-haired race 

 which Lesson says inhabits the interior, but which no one 

 has ever seen, and the account of which I suspect has origi- 

 nated in some mistake. The captain told me he had made 

 a detailed survey of part of the south coast, and if the coal 

 an'ived should go away at once to Humboldt Bay, in lon- 

 gitude 141° east, which is the Hue up to which the IJutch 

 claim New Guinea. On board the tender I fuund a 

 brother natui-alist, a German named liosenberg, who was 

 di'aughtsmau to the surveying statf. He had brought two 

 men with him to shoot and skin birds, and had been able 

 to purchase a few rare skms from the natives. Among 

 these %vas a pair of the superb Paradise Pie (Astrapia 

 nigiti) in tolerable preservation. They were bronght from 

 tlie island of Jubie, wliich may be its native contiliy, as it 



