A heavy charge of shot will often lodge in the slain and do them no harm, and even breaking the spine or piercing the brain will not kill them for some hours.

The natives everywhere eat their flesh, and as their motions are so slow, easily catch them by climbing; so that it is wonderful they have not been exterminated.

It may be, however, that their dense woolly fur protects them from birds of prey, and the islands they live in are too thinly inhabited for man to be able to exterminate them.

The figure represents Cuscus ornatus, a new species discovered by me in Batchian, and which also inhabits Ternate.
It is peculiar to the Moluccas, while the two other species which inhabit Ceram are found also in New Guinea and Waigiou.
In place of the excessive poverty of mammals which characterises the Moluccas, we have a very rich display of the feathered tribes.

The number of species of birds at present known from the various islands of the Molluccan group is 265, but of these only 70 belong to the usually abundant tribes of the waders and swimmers, indicating that these are very imperfectly known.