GENERAL REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER OF THE FAUNA OE 
CENTRAL NEW GUINEA 
State of the present knowledge 
Finishing this paper the author finds himself before a difficult task. 
The temptation is great to add to this study an analysis of the fauna in 
question; the material studied enumerating almost six hunderd species 
from Central New Guinea may appear to be extensive enough to justify 
this. At the other hand, as has already been put forward in the introduction 
to this paper, our knowledge of the entire South Asiatic fauna of Micro- 
lepidoptera is still in such a fragmentary state that an essay of this kind 
must have the disadvantage of being greatly premature, and therefore 
incomplete. 
For, however satisfactory the present collection may be, all previous 
collecting ever done in New Guinea has been quite incidental as far as our 
group of insects is concerned. Moreover, the data on the distribution of 
Microlepidoptera in the adjoining regions necessary for a comparison of 
their faunas are even more lacunary. The knowledge of the fauna of the 
Malay Archipelago, for instance, which is of the greatest importance for 
our problem, is still in an infantile stage. Only certain parts of the island 
of Java are better known. We know hardly anything about the faunas of 
the other Sunda Islands, of the Moluccas, and of the Philippine Islands. 
All the available data amount to records of a couple of hundreds of species 
captured incidentally together with Maerolepidoptera or with other 
insects throughout the Archipelago by this or that individual collector in 
the course of many years. When we take into consideration the enormous 
expanse of this region, its tropical climate, and its exceedingly rich flora, 
the present information on its Microlepidopterous fauna may be styled 
as entirely inadequate. This state of alfairs is disappointing and strongly 
reduces the worth of any remarks on the zoogeography of this group of 
insects in South Asia. 
However, the sketched situation is, as we hope, not permanent; on the 
contrary, considerable collecting of Microlepidoptera of not longer inci- 
dental character has been carried out in various parts of the Archipelago 
during the last decade, and is being continued up to this moment. As a 
result several excellent collections have been made which only wait to be 
worked upon. Therefore the author resolved not to abstain from a summary 
on the distribution altogether, but to limit himself to a few general 
remarks on the character of the fauna concerned, although he is aware 
that these may be hazardous. 
