Pengagl Creek Jacking last night by Van, John, and Kim the cook resulted in the usual blank for this camp though Kim saw, shot at, and missed a small arboreal rat. Last night Van trapped his first marsupial mouse for the mountain (all others have been bought from natives), the first trapped specimen of the big brown Melomys was taken, and several common Rattus niobe. The complete lack of results from jacklighting is mystifying. The country looks promising. The natives say that phalangrs live here, concealing themselves by day amongst the dry dead leaves of the big Pandanus trees. Today I have my first dragonfly for the mountain, netted in the camp clearing by the snotty nosed small son of Demkana, the man who claims ownership of practically all the land, and birds of paradise thereon, from Keglsugl to the top of Mt. Wilhelm. Demkana attached himself to our camp as a permanent fixture, and wood and water joey, at Piunde-Aunde and is still with us. A husky, hirsute, cheerful man with small beard and clad only in a netted sporran in front and bunch of leaves behind, he has influence with the other Chimbus and is a pleasant fellow to have around. Nouhouysia, an obscure and controversial monotypic endemic genus of the Guttiferae, is plentiful in the substage of this forest. In 1956 I was asked by Perry of the Arnold Arboretum for material of it for anatomical study but found only one stunted plant (on Mt. Riu, Sudest Id.). Today I have pickled ample material for nodal, foliar, floral and fructatl examinatiion. Wednesday, July 8. Max. 15.5, min. 8 C. A dull, dark dawn; no air movement up or down the valley. Steady light rain from a thunderstorm in Bundi Gap started here at 8 p.m. and continued after we had gone to bed and to sleep. Today completely overcast; mist low in the valley at times; drizzling rain began a little before noon and continues now at 6 p.m. Wretched weather, but we can achieve some field work. Worked up Van's first trapping trail which was cut on the slopes of the steep ridge which bounds the valley of Pengagl stream on our side, on a heading a few points south of west. Van cut about 3/5th of the way up to the crest of the ridge, 500-600 feet above camp. I completed the job in about an hour this morning. The ridge steep. The forest poorly developed, with very broken canopy and much scrambling bamboo. Visibility extremely poor, and for the most part only in silhouette against the dark sky, but so far as I could see there was no real change in the character of the forest as compared with the valley bottom. I saw no unfamiliar trees of the canopy, although several new undergrowth and substage elements, including a big-fruited Helicia, came in. The small-leaved Weirmannia was common to the ridge crest. Podocarpus papuanus and a Papuacedrus were plentiful there as supercanopy trees, and a longish-leaved podocarp, like the one of the lower end of Piunde-Aunde Valley, occurred in the canopy. The forest very poor in species of all categories. I found, however, some unfamiliar mosses. The trees and ground fuzzily rather than heavily mossed. Today's prize in the mammal department was the highly specialized water rat Crossomys caught by John in a steel trap about 1/4 mile below the junction on Pengagl and Lubuka creeks at an estimated altitude of 8500-8600 feet. Great paddle-shaped hind feet (even the legs enlarged), very thick tail with dictichous lateral lines of bristly hairy, elevated nostrils, and concealed ears only 1 mm long. Natives brought in from down below a Rudromicia, a Lorentzimys and 3 Melomys spp. Only the common Rattus in Van's traps.