A Year's Scientific Work in New Guinea

Abstract

A RECENT administration report from New Guinea, issued by the Colonial Office, contains an appendix on the scientific work of the year in the island. The first paper in this is a report by Baron von Mueller on the botanical specimens collected. He says that the increase in our knowledge of the Papuan flora, derived from Sir William MacGregor's collection in 1890, has been again important. Foremost as a result we learn from these contributions that a considerable number of Australian species of plants, which, as such, were hitherto regarded as quite endemic, are likewise indigenous to the vicinity of the Mai-Kussa and WasiKussa in New Guinea. Thus they occur precisely opposite to Cape York, from whence the seeds may have been carried across by migratory birds or perhaps by some other agencies. These, otherwise only Australian, plants may therefore not really belong to the primitive vegetation of New Guinea, though they are now established in such a way as not to admit of distinguishing them in regard to their origin from the great bulk of the lowland species, whether truly Papuan or simultaneously also Malayan. The occurrence has already been demonstrated of a number of lowland plants of specific Australian type in various parts of New Guinea. To these can now be added a number of others which are specified by Baron von Mueller. It can now be shown also that the cedar (or rather cedrel), of which many shipments have been made to Australian ports, is identical with the Singapore cedar (Cedrela Toona). The magnificent and renowned aquatic plant, Nelumbo nucifera, has now been located on the upper Fly River. Some other plants, unknown from New Guinea before, such as Polygala chinensis, Salomonia oblongifolia, Sesuvium Portulacastrum, Leptospermum Javanicum, and Limnophila gratioloides, are recorded in the Administrator's last collection, while some more are awaiting careful comparative elucidation before the fixing of their systematic position. Count Solms-Laubach, the monographer of Pandaneæ, has acknowledged the screw pine from Ferguson Island, in the Louisiades, as a new species under the name P. Macgregorii. An essay of Baron von Mueller on the highland plants collected during the year by Sir William MacGregor has appeared in the publications of the Royal Society of Victoria. But he was able to examine only a few of the ferns brought from the upper region of the Owen Stanley Range; among them, however, is the new Cyathea Macgregorii, which reaches a higher elevation than any other of the many kinds of fern-trees now known. To expedite the determination of their specific position, Mr. Baker, of Kew, has undertaken to define systematically the seventy species of Ficilis and Lycopodiaceæ, contained in Sir William MacGregor's collection from the Owen Stanley Ranges. Mr. Baker regards nineteen of these ferns as new, and therefore, so far as our present experience reaches, as exclusively Papuan. These hitherto unknown species are comprised within the genera Cyathea, Hymenophyllun, Dicksonia, Davallia, Lindsaya, Aspidium, and largely Polypodium. The Curator of the Queensland Museum reports on the zoological collections. No new animal of the warm-blooded class has been met with during the year; perhaps those remaining to be found in the coast country are both few and ráre. By way of compensation, however, certain Australian birds, the native companion, white ibis, and royal spoonbill, must now be included in the Papuan avifauna as at least temporary sojourners on the banks of the Fly River. It is noteworthy that these birds were found on the Fly River during the continuance in the north of Queensland of a drought which had driven them from their haunts proper and scattered them far and wide in search of water. Of the reptiles, on the other hand, a few new forms are distinguishable. These occur among the lizards. Two handsome snakes, Chondropython azureus and pulcher, have been added to the State collection of Papuan ophidians. On the whole, the vertebrate collection is subordinate in importance and interest to that of the insect division of the invertebrates. The whole of the insects collected were examined by the Entomological Department, and two reports on the Lepidoptera and Coleoptera are appended. From these it appears that several species both of butterflies and beetles are new to science. The collection contains in many instances a large series of examples of the same insect, which is all-important in the case of variable forms, whose unknown range of variation is a prolific source of error. Besides Lepidoptera and Coleoptera it contains many Hemipterous insects which have not yet been determined. The few forms of Mollusca procured on the Fly River have yielded but one new species, a remarkably fine Nanina.