Abstract
IN this work Mr. A. E. Pratt gives an account of the time he, with his son, a youth of seventeen, spent in New Guinea collecting zoological specimens during the years 1901–3. A short visit was paid to the Dutch settlement of Merauke, newly established among the Tugeri tribes of Netherlands New Guinea to check the raids into British territory of these enterprising savages, but owing to the unsettled condition of the country no attempt to leave the settlement was made. Mr. Pratt then shifted his quarters to Port Moresby, in British territory, whence moving to Yule Island he organised his expeditions to the mountainous hinterland of the Mekeo district of the Central Division, where almost the whole of his time was spent and where his collections were principally made. A large number of new Lepidoptera, a new fish, and a couple of new reptiles rewarded Mr. Pratt's efforts; but although the object of the expedition was to collect zoological and botanical specimens, Mr. Pratt devotes little space in his book to natural history, its bulk being given to a gossipy description of the author's journeyings, with remarks, too often inaccurate, on the natives he came in contact with.
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SELIGMANN, C. The Aborigines of Unexplored New Guinea 1 . Nature 74, 58–59 (1906). https://doi.org/10.1038/074058a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/074058a0