574 



TlfE NATURAL IllSWItT [chap, xxxix 



the Siiltan), the heatl raen of the coast villages would 

 for the future refuse to purchase them from the moun- 

 t^iineers, and coufine themselves instead to the commoner 

 species, which are less souglit after by amateurs, but are a 

 more profitable merchandise. The same causes frequentiy 

 lead the inhabitants of uncivili2ed countries to conceal 

 minerftls or other natural prodncta with whicli they may 

 become acquainted, from the fear of being obliged to pay 

 increased tribute, or of bringing upon themselves a new 

 and oppressive laboiir. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



THE NATURAL niSTOET OF THE PAPUAN l^LVDS. 



EW GUINEA, with the islands joined to it by a 

 shallow sea, constitute the Papuan group, chaiac- 

 terised by a very close resemblance in tlieir peciiiiar forms 

 of lifa Havin^? already, in my chapters ou thcAru Islands 

 and on the Birds of Pai'adise, given some det^ls of the 

 natural history of this district, 1 shall here coufine myself 

 to a general sketch of it5 animal productions, and of their 

 relations to those of the rest of the world. 



New Guinea is perhaps the lai;gest island on the globe, 

 bein^j a little larger than Borneo. It is nearly fourteen 

 hundred miles long, and in the widest part fonr hundred 

 broad, and seems to be everywhere covered with luxuriant 

 forests. Almost everything that is yet known of its 

 uatuxai productions comes from the north-western penin- 

 sula, a 0(1 a few islands grouped around it. These do not 

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

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

 somewhat ib fterent ; yet they have produccil us (with a 

 very partial exploration) no loss tban two Imndred and 

 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 krm incognita that still remains 



