Oomsis Followed the main Oomsis Valley logging road to about a mile from camp. Visibility very poor for spotting flowers and fruits in the trees, so I struck in to the creak and followed it down c. 1/2 mile. Banks low, gravelly, subject to flooding and unstable. Many big trees, undermined and fallen over the creek made travel difficult. On the one short stretch of high bank, where the hills come into the stream, I collected my first tree-fern (Cyathea) for the trip. Having a spare boy (Kili) for the time being, I sent him out insect collecting in the morning, with instructions to let the butterflies alone and concentræ on dragonflies for the killing bottle, and spiders to put in an alcohol jar. Result, a number of common butterflies in the bottle, and a mess of dragonflies mixed with a huge beetle in the alcohol. After lunch I had John give further instructions in his fluent pidgin, but got no more than 6 dragon- flies for the sunny afternoon. Kili will not be with us long. I don't expect any Einstein's. But this fellow is too dumb. Close examination of the several Melomys trapped here show 2 spp., one with white under pelage, the other with gray. We now have 16 mammal spp. from this camp. A blank in traps this morning; they have been moved to the creek in an effort to get Hydromys. A pip and a small Emballonura shot this evening. Schultz' caretaker boy contributed a big white cuscus, shot somewhere in the hills. Our information is that this animal is only on the hills in this area. Van and John, jacking to 11:30 on the ridge about the nearest logging paddock, shot only a green tree boa. It developed into a herpetology night. Frogs became active after the onset of rain c. 10:30 and five or six species, including a curious, flattened, yellow one from the thin layer of leaf litter on the forest floor, were collected. In the morning I had collected a very small gray frog which hops on moist gravel bars in the creek. Sunday, April 19. Rainless but largely overcast day with strong breeze up valley PM. My day spent on collections, which are drying very slowly with the Tilley lamps, and on accounts and letters. An extraordinary day for Van. Seven Syconycteris in nets set around a fruiting ficus aff. ribes tree. A Hydromys in traps set in the main creek. A Uromys ?caudimaculatus but from a tree and brought in by Schultz' boy. In all, there were 14 mammals on the table this morning. Van now has 18 spp. for the camp. Very good for 9 days in the field. The Womersleys drove out late in the day with the latest news on the laggard Shansi. Now she is not expected in Lae until tomorrow morning. There is over a radio report that the ship will call at Madang before. We are pre- paring to go into Lae in the morning. Traps are in and bat nets down. Some very heavy rain during the night (19th). Monday, April 20. We are in Lae and the Shansi is here. Expecting a message from the ship by a Forest Department timber truck, which did not arrive. We left Oomsis about 10:30 and, driving all the way in rain, drove in to Lae in the expectation that the Shansi would have arrived. She tied up around 6 AM, but the rain delayed cargo handling until about 4 PM. We drove straight from the Bush to the wharf 1-2 miles S. of town. John recognized the