These do not constitute a tenth part of the area of the whole island, and are so cut off from it, that their fauna may well he somewhat different; yet they have produced us (with a very partial exploration) no less than two hundred and fifty species of land birds, almost all unknown elsewhere, and comprising some of the most curious and most beautiful 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 terra incognita that still remains for the naturalist to explore, and the only region where altogether new and unimagined forms of life may perhaps be found.

There is now, I am happy to say, some chance that this great country will no longer remain absolutely unknown to us.

The Dutch Government have granted well-equipped steamer to carry a naturalist (Mr.Rosenberg, already mentioned in this work) and assistants to New Guinea, where they are to spend some years in circumnavigating the island, ascending its large rivers a< far as possible into the interior, and making extensive collections of its natural productions.
The Mammalia of New Guinea and the adjacent islands, yet discovered, are only seventeen in number.

Two of these are bats, one is a pig of a peculiar species (Sus papuensis), and the rest are all marsupials.