Oomsis Tuesday, April 14. Only slight showers last night. Some cloudiness today, but no rain. A good day for field work. My morning spent in an area in the foothills about 1 mile SW of camp and at an elevation of 650 ft. according to the Forest Department map of this area. (This same map makes the elevation of our camp 350 ft.) At the log camp at the end of the road I met Bill Jenkins, a Sydney native in charge of logging operations and 10 years in this country. In an area of not more than 2 acres, 100 - 200 ft. on the slopes, 17 trees were cut yesterday. I went there to work over the felled area. It was not a profitable as I expected. Most of the timber trees were fine, tall, straight dipterocarps (Anisoptera), associated with which were an Intsia (local name Kwila), a Celtis, a ? Cinnamomum, and a verbenaceous tree the generic name of which will not come out from the back of my mind. The density of the newly felled area was such that it was hard to scramble over it, especially for me, in a rubber-soled sort of gym shoe. All the big trees were clean boles and, though differing in bark characters, none was favorable for epiphytes. Common high on the trees were a Lecanopteris and a Dischidia (aff. Nummularia); a staghorn fern (Platycerium) was too damaged to collect; several small orchids were sterile; I collected one extraordinary smaller mass (#29194) from high on an Anisoptera. A Pothos, characteristic as a root climber was in flower. A fan palm (Plicuala), plentiful on the slopes, was just as common in creek-flat forest in camp. A slender, very smooth Cyrtostachys occured with the fan palm in young flower bud only. Another slender arecoid palm, also sterile, was noted, and a robust, climbing Korthalsia. The forest had no definite subcanopy layer. A plentiful substage layer of slender trees had nothing fertile and collectable. My boys picked from the boles of the newly felled Anisoptera trees two very big longicorn beetles which Jenkins recognized as the adult of a "Witchety" grub damaging to dipterocarp logs. According to Jenkins, the beetle attacks only damaged bark surfaces of standing trees. But a day or two after the trees are cut down the females come along and lay their eggs in the numerous bruised parts of the bark. The eggs hatch rapidly. The larvae seriously damage the logs with their borings. Barking of the logs will prevent damage. Jenkins can get no identification of the beetles from the Lae entomologist. Clearance of logs from the ramp area has been held up by the recent weather. Saw there one Anisoptera log, nearly 3 ft. in diameter at the big end, which had been cut onto 3x40 ft. lengths, and on end bit of about 10 feet. A Kwila log was nearly five feet through ! Being short on plants, I stopped on the way back to camp to collect dragon- flies, and got, I think 9 species, including a blue damselfly like thing entirely new to me, and a couple of big ? Tramia spp. An ? Anax hawked over one pool just out of reach. The pools were formed in gullies on the upper side of the logging access road. Van and John, jacking last night, shot a ? Phalanger orientalis with a very big young one in her pouch. Two good Melomys in traps set in the logging area described above. Two Pipistrellus papuanus shot at dusk this evening. Van (with John's assistance in shooting, and driving the Land Rover to good spots) is doing well. A blowfly pest outside, makes advisable the skinning of all mammals in the screened porch-living room of the house, even smelly cuscus. Today I rigged