TREE-KANGAROOS.

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week's purchase had I ventured to live alone and unprotected as at Dorey. On board the steamer they had a pair of treekangaroos alive. They differ chiefly from the ground-kangaroo in having a more hairy tail, not thickened at the base, and not used as a prop; and by the powerful claws on the forefeet, by which they grasp the bark and branches, and seize the leaves on which they feed. They move along by short jumps on their hind-feet, which do not seem particularly well adapted for climbing trees. It has been supposed that these tree-kangaroos are a special adaptation to the swampy, half-drowned forests of New Guinea, in place of the usual form of the group, which is adapted only to dry ground. Mr. Windsor Earl makes much of this theory, but, unfortunately for it, the treekangaroos are chiefly found in the northern peninsula of New Guinea, which is entirely composed of hills and mountains with very little flat land, while the kangaroo of the low flat Aru Islands (Dorcopsis asiaticus) is a ground species. A more probable supposition seems to be, that the tree-kangaroo has been modified to enable it to feed on foliage in the vast forests of New Guinea, as these form the great natural feature which distinguishes that country from Australia.

On June 5th, the coal-ship arrived, having been sent back from Amboyna, with the addition of some fresh stores for the steamer. The wood, which had been almost all taken on board, was now unladen again, the coal taken in, and on the 17th both steamer and tender left for Humboldt Bay. We were then a little quiet again, and got something to eat; for while the vessels were here every bit of fish or vegetable was taken on board, and I had often to make a small parroquet serve for two meals. My men now returned from Amberbaki, but, alas! brought me almost nothing. They had visited several villages, and even went two days' journey into the interior, but could find no skins of birds of paradise to purchase, except the common kind, and very few even of those. The birds found were the same as at Dorey, but were still scarcer. None of the natives anywhere near the coast shoot or prepare birds of paradise, which come from far in the interior over two or three ranges of mountains, passing by barter from village to village till they reach the sea. There the natives of Dorey

I

buy them, and on their return home sell them to the Bugis or Ternate traders. It is therefore hopeless for a traveller to go to any particular place on the coast of New Guinea where rare paradise birds may have been bought, in hopes of obtaining freshly killed specimens from the natives; and it also shows the scarcity of these birds in any one locality, since from the Amberbaki district, a celebrated place, where at least five or six species have been procured, not one of the rarer ones has been obtained this year. The Prince of Tidore, who would certainly have got them if any were to be had, was obliged to put up with a few of the common yellow ones. think it probable that a longer residence at Dorey, a little farther in the interior, might show that several of the rarer kinds were found there, as I obtained a single female of the fine scale-breasted Ptiloris magnificus. I was told at Ternate of a bird that is certainly not yet known in Europe, a black King Paradise Bird, with the curled tail and beautiful sideplumes of the common species, but all the rest of the plumage glossy black. The people of Dorey knew nothing about this, although they recognized by description most of the other species.

When the steamer left, I was suffering from a severe attack of fever. In about a week I got over this, but it was followed by such a soreness of the whole inside of the mouth, tongue, and gums, that for many days I could put nothing solid between my lips, but was obliged to subsist entirely on slops, although in other respects very well. At the same time two of my men again fell ill, one with fever, the other with dysentery, and both got very bad. I did what I could for them with my small stock of medicines, but they lingered on for some weeks, till on June 26th poor Jumaat died. He was about eighteen years of age, a native, I believe, of Bouton, and a quiet lad, not very active, but doing his work pretty steadily, and as well as he was able. As my men were all Mohammedans, I let them bury him in their own fashion, giving them some new cotton cloth for a shroud.

On July 6th the steamer returned from the eastward. The weather was still terribly wet, when, according to rule, it should have been fine and dry. to eat, and were all of us ill.

We had scarcely any thing Fevers, colds, and dysentery

HUMBOLDT BAY.

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were continually attacking us, and made me long to get away from New Guinea, as much as ever I had longed to come there. The captain of the Etna paid me a visit, and gave me a very interesting account of his trip. They had staid at Humboldt Bay several days, and found it a much more beautiful and more interesting place than Dorey, as well as a better harbor. The natives were quite unsophisticated, being rarely visited except by stray whalers, and they were superior to the Dorey people, morally and physically. They went quite naked. Their houses were some in the water and some inland, and were all neatly and well built; their fields were well cultivated, and the paths to them kept clear and open, in which respects Dorey is abominable. They were shy at first, and opposed the boats with hostile demonstrations, bending their bows, and intimating that they would shoot if an attempt was made to land. Very judiciously the captain gave way, but threw on shore a few presents, and after two or three trials they were permitted to land, and to go about and see the country, and were supplied with fruits and vegetables. All communication was carried on with them by signs-the Dorey interpreter, who accompanied the steamer, being unable to understand a word of their language. No new birds or animals were obtained, but in their ornaments the feathers of paradise birds were seen, showing, as might be expected, that these birds range far in this direction, and probably all over New Guinea.

It is curious that a rudimental love of art should co-exist with such a very low state of civilization. The people of Dorey are great carvers and painters. The outsides of the houses, wherever there is a plank, are covered with rude yet characteristic figures. The high-peaked prows of their boats are ornamented with masses of open filigree-work, cut out of solid blocks of wood, and often of very tasteful design. As a figure-head, or pinnacle, there is often a human figure, with a head of cassowary feathers to imitate the Papuan "mop." The floats of their fishing-lines, the wooden beaters used in tempering the clay for their pottery, their tobacco-boxes, and other household articles, are covered with carving of tasteful and often elegant design. Did we not already know that such taste and skill are compatible with utter barbarism, we could hardly believe that the same people are, in other matters, utterly wanting

in all sense of order, comfort, or decency. Yet such is the case. They live in the most miserable, crazy, and filthy hovels, which are utterly destitute of any thing that can be called furniture;

CARVED TOOL FOR MAKING POTTERY.

not a stool, or bench, or board is seen in them, no brush seems to be known, and the clothes they wear are often filthy bark, or rags, or sacking. Along the paths where they daily pass to and from their provision-grounds, not an overhanging bough or straggling briar ever seems to be cut, so that you have to brush through a rank vegetation, creep under fallen trees and spiny creepers, and wade through pools of mud and mire, which can not dry up because the sun is not allowed to penetrate. Their food is almost wholly roots and vegetables, with fish or game only as an occasional luxury, and they are consequently very subject to various skin diseases, the children especially being often miserablelooking objects, blotched all over with eruptions and sores. If these people are not savages, where shall we find any? Yet they have all a decided love for the fine arts, and spend their leisure time in executing works whose good taste and elegance would often be admired in our schools of design!

During the latter part of my stay in New Guinea the weather was very wet, my only shooter was ill, and birds became scarce, so that my only resource was insect-hunting. I worked very hard every hour of fine weather, and daily obtained a number of new species. Every dead tree and fallen log was searched and searched again; and among the dry and rotting leaves, which still hung on certain trees which had been cut down, I found an abundant harvest of minute Coleoptera.

Al

though I never afterward found so many large and handin Borneo, yet I obtained here a great vaFor the first two or three weeks, while

some beetles as riety of species.

A DAY'S BEETLE CATCHING.

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I was searching out the best localities, I took about 30 different kinds of beetles a day, besides about half that number of butterflies, and a few of the other orders. But afterward, up to the very last week, I averaged 49 species a day. On the 31st of May, I took 78 distinct sorts, a larger number than I had ever captured before, principally obtained among dead trees and under rotten bark. A good long walk on a fine day up the hill, and to the plantations of the natives, capturing every thing not very common that came in my way, would produce about 60 species; but on the last day of June I brought home no less than 95 distinct kinds of beetles, a larger number than I ever obtained in one day before or since. It was a fine hot day, and I devoted it to a search among dead leaves, beating foliage, and hunting under rotten bark, in all the best stations I had discovered during my walks. I was out from ten in the morning till three in the afternoon, and it took me six hours' work at home to pin and set out all the specimens, and to separate the species. Although I had already been working this spot daily for two months and a half, and had obtained over 800 species of Coleoptera, this day's work added 32 new ones. Among these were 4 Longicorns, 2 Carabidæ, 7 Staphylinidæ, 7 Curculionidæ, 2 Copridæ, 4 Chrysomelida, 3 Heteromera, 1 Elater, and 1 Buprestis. Even on the last day I went out, I obtained 16 new species; so that although I collected over a thousand distinct sorts of beetles in a space not much exceeding a square mile during the three months of my residence at Dorey, I can not believe that this represents one-half the species really inhabiting the same spot, or a fourth of what might be obtained in an area extending twenty miles in each direction.

On the 22d of July the schooner Hester Helena arrived, and five days afterward we bade adieu to Dorey, without much regret, for in no place which I have visited have I encountered more privations and annoyances. Continual rain, continual sickness, little wholesome food, with a plague of ants and flies, surpassing any thing I had before met with, required all a naturalist's ardor to encounter; and when they were uncompensated by great success in collecting, became all the more insupportable. This long-thought-of and much-desired voyage to New Guinea had realized none of my expectations. Instead