240 Drs. O. Finsch and A. B. Meyer on 
It is quite evident that the stay in this mountain-region, 
where continuous precipitation renders the preparation of 
birds very laborious and that of plants almost impossible, 
was an excessively hard task, and one that could be only 
undertaken by a man of steel and iron, who was at the same 
time on the best terms with the natives, and a person of 
untiring industry and unbroken strength. Such a man was 
Karl Hunstein. Avoiding the scattered habitations of the 
natives, who were by no means friendly, Hunstein passed his 
time in the bush, and ascended almost daily the mountain- 
chain about 2000 feet higher, in order to obtain the beautiful 
Paradise-birds, of the existence of which he became assured 
by the feathered ornaments worn by the natives. Amongst 
these were, along with others, the tail-feathers of the male of 
the Epimachus meyeri , which Hunstein at once recognized as 
a new species, but of which, in spite of every effort, he only 
succeeded in obtaining a single female. This bird, as well as 
Astrarchia stephanice and Paradisornis rudolphi , were only 
to be met with in a hostile district, into which Hunstein 
could occasionally penetrate when unnoticed by the natives, 
and not without danger to his own life. 
The greater part of the collections now to be described were 
obtained in this interesting and previously untrodden mountain - 
region, which, on account of the presence of the rhododendron, 
may be appropriately termed alpine. Very little was col¬ 
lected at Moroke, and nothing in the coast-district of Port 
Moresby, where the vegetation resembles that of Australia in 
its Eucalypti , or upon the way from Port Moresby to the 
Astrolabe range. 
It is due to the fortunate incident that one of us, already 
well known to Hunstein, in whose company he had made 
a journey in 1882 into the interior from Port Moresby, 
met the latter in Cooktown, that this very interesting col¬ 
lection has found its way to Dresden, and thus to be pub¬ 
lished, although after much greater delay than was desirable*. 
* The typical specimens have been mostly placed in the Royal Zoolo¬ 
gical Museum at Dresden. 
h s ^-) 
