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. The bats are, no doubt, much more numerous,
but there is every reason to believe that whatever new land
Mammalia man be discovered will belong to the marsupial order.
One of these is a true kangaroo, very similar to some of middle-
sized kangaroos of Australia, and it is remarkable as being the
first animal of the kind ever seen by Europeans. It inhabits
Mysol and the Aru Islands (an allied species being found in New
Guinea), and was seen and described by Le Brun in 1714, from
living specimens at Batavia. A much more extraordinary creature
is the tree-kangaroo, two species of which are known from New
Guinea. These animals do not differ very strikingly in form from
the terrestrial kangaroos, and appear to be but imperfectly
adapted to an arboreal life, as they move rather slowly, and do
not seem to have a very secure footing on the limb of a tree. The
leaping power of the muscular tail is lost, and powerful claws
have been acquired to assist in climbing, but in other respects
the animal seems better adapted to walls on terra firma.
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