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INTRODUCTION. iil

Australians have also done much to increase our knowledge of the zoology of South-eastern New Guinea,
and the collections of the ‘ Chevert’ expedition and other explorers, Mr. Masters, Mr. Morton, Mr.
Pettard, and Mr. Broadbent, have been described by Dr. E. P. Ramsay at Sydney, or by ourselves here in
London. ‘The Astrolabe Mountains have been visited by Mr. Goldie, Mr. Hunstein, and Mr. H. O. Forbes,
and have yielded some surprising and beautiful novelties. Many of the species discovered originally in the
Arfak Mountains have now been found in the Astrolabe Range, which, however, appears to possess a
certain individual fauna, though we know so little of the mountain-ranges of the interior of New Guinea
that it would be impossible to affirm that any species is peculiar to any portion of the mountain system and
does not extend throughout its entire area.

Before concluding this sketch of zoological work in New Guinea and the Moluccas, we must allude to
the excellent results obtained by Mr. H. O. Forbes and his heroic wife in the Tenimber Islands. They
were the first Europeans to collect in the dreaded ‘Timor Laut group, and though compelled to work, through
the hostility of the surrounding natives, in a circumscribed space, the number of new species obtained
reflected the greatest credit on the energy of these brave travellers. Mr. Riedel’s. hunters have also
discovered a few new species on the Tenimber Islands.

In the pages of the present work frequent reference is made to the ‘Ornitologia della Papuasia e delle
Molucche’ of Count Salvadori. The present writer knows how difficult, in these days of many books, is the
task of the man who sets himself to write a monograph of any group of birds, and to write a complete account
of the avifauna of any country is even more tedious. Although the collections stored in the Museo Civico at
Genoa are most complete, the enthusiasm of the distinguished Director of that Museum, Marquis Doria,
having drawn thereto the collections of the Italian travellers, as energetic and full of purpose as he is
himself, yet the treasures in the other museums of Europe must be collated with the material accumulated
by Italy, if a complete account of the ornithology of New Guinea has to be compiled. Travelling,
therefore, from country to country, comparing the collections in his charge with those made by English,
French, Dutch, and German travellers, Count Salvadori may well be congratulated on the result which
his thoughtful earnestness obtained, and in the great work on Papuan Ornithology of which he is the author
he has raised up for himself an imperishable reputation. The best tribute which the present writer can
pay to his work exists in a reference to the number of times which he has been obliged to quote or to copy
Count Salvadori’s writings, because, on the subject of Papuan Ornithology, he left us little or nothing to

add to the information given by him in the ‘ Ornitologia della Papuasia.’

R. BOWDLER SHARPE.