Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
XXXIX
The Natural History of the Papuan Islands
New Guinea, with the islands joined to it by a shallow sea, constitute the Papuan group, char-
acterised by a very close resemblance in their peculiar forms of life. Having already, in my
chapters on the Aru Islands and on the Birds of Paradise, given some details of the natural
history of this district, I shall here confine myself to a general sketch of its animal produc-
tions, and of their relations to those of the rest of the world.
New Guinea is perhaps the largest island on the globe, being a little larger than Borneo. It
is nearly fourteen hundred miles long, and in the widest part four hundred broad, and seems
to be everywhere covered with luxuriant forests. Almost everything that is yet known of its
natural productions comes from the north-western peninsula, and a few islands grouped
around it. 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 be 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 a 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, ascend-
ing its large rivers as 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. The bats are, no doubt, much more numerous, but there is every reas-
on to believe that whatever new land Mammalia may be discovered will belong to the mar-
