Kainantu-Arau rain forest elements in the underbrush and ground cover. One of the oaks has very small acorns, not above 1 cm. in diameter; another, at the homestead where there is a relic patch of forest, bears great acorns a full 5 cm. across the bottom. Forest very wet after yesterday's rain. Wednesday, October 7. Day mostly overcast after thick mist and some drizzle about dawn. No rain. The season has been very cloudy here; rainfall not much above average but rain fell on many more days than average. We arrived at the end of the longest dry spell -- 4 days. Worked in the relic patch of oak-Castanopsis forest immediately on the north side of the homestead. Much disturbance by cutting minor trees and by pigs, but in places a good undergrowth survives. Footing was difficult on the very steep, eroded, yellow clay slopes of a deep ravine. At least three spp. of oaks, not easy to distinguish from the Castanopsis, occur in this patch of a few acres of forest. Mammals are coming in well. Eleven bats in three mist nets last night included 2 specimens of the very rare Paranyctimene, the others Syconycteris. Several steel traps carried away by a freshet in the Wanton last night, but recovered later. Thursday, October 8. Early morning mist followed by almost completely overcast day; sharp shower between noon and 1 p.m., more just before dark. Botanized east through the coffee plantings to the primary Castanopsis-oak forest beyond, and down a steep clayey slope to the O'awa River. Poor forest on the steep slope -- Castanopsis-oak with slight admixture of other large trees. One big Dacrydium? with pendent, larch-like branchlets in a gully head. Another tree was Engelhardtia, which I have found to be a regular associate of the oaks in true midmountain forest elsewhere in New Guinea. A climbing Vaccinium with narrow red flowers was common. Some tiny ferns collected in moss on trees, and big climbing Oleandra. The forests carry considerable moss patched on tree trunks, on undergrowth, and covering the flanged bases of some of the old oaks and Castanopsis, but very little on the ground except on rotting wood. The ground leafy. Oak and Castanopsis leaves decay slowly. Met some people of Kamboira on the track. Big for mountain people, and bright, but many of them covered with sipoma. Women wear long "grass" skirts; the younger ones divided into front and rear pieces leaving the hips bare. The men spoke familiarly of the monotremes in the area -- long-nosed Zaglossus back in the mountains, short-nosed Tachyglossus generally distributed. The latter walk about at night and can only be found by dogs. Shaw-Mayer got a few fragments of the genus in this area about 1932 -- the only record for NE New Guinea. Friday, October 9. Weather pattern continues. Misty rain in early morning; overcast to noon; some sunshine c. 12 to 2; steady rain, mostly light, from 4 o'clock into the night. Went late into the field after working on materials on hand. Had John drive me down to the O'awa River, where Larner has boys clearing a new area of ground about a mile from the homestead. Clearing is on river flats not far above junction with the Wanton. Forest mostly of tall oaks and perhaps Castanopsis with a considerable admixture of a big red-barked Dillenia which Larner cuts for timber