Lae-Oomsis 34 amount of initiative, but he has a chronic bad leg and would be a liability in rough bush work. Asked Naton yesterday, when I gave him notice, if he had any "one talks" who would like to work for us. At noon today he brought along four from somewhere in the Finschhafen bush. Took on the two most likely looking, and they do appear good prospects. The two dopes recruited from the Pericles area a couple of weeks ago will be let go as soon as it is convenient to return them to their home locality. That will leave us, after some winnowing, with six boys. This will be our crew until after the Mt. Wilhelm phase of the trip. Will probably take on a bug boy and a herps boy after that. It would not be worth taking "specialists" of this kind to the higher altitudes, and only five or six weeks remain before we will be taking off for the high mountains. The load on Land Rover and trailer out of Lae this afternoon approximated 2500 lbs. It included a 50 gal. drum of kerosene, about half to 2/3rds of which we will expect to use before the end of May, but at this it will come cheaper than 5 gal. drums at the local rate of 2 pounds per drum. We have food for only 10 days. Still, the outfit could have carried more weight, and Van has at least 100 lbs of collecting supplies which he will not be able to use. I estimate, that by due attention to weight, and the elimination of everything not essential, we could move our party of 3 whites and 6 natives, with supplies for about a month in one load. This is better than I anticipated. Van has traps out tonight. He and John went down the road 2 miles to Lionel Baker's Gabensis Plantation, but rain spoiled their shooting of bats. They saw a big insectivorous species which is not yet in the collection. Saturday, April 25. Anzac Day and a holiday, with special doings by returned soldiers, in Lae and all the other centers of white population in Australian territory, but a busy work day for us. At last we are functioning with all the equipment and supplies we consider necessary for our work. Light to medium rain through most of last night. A threatening morning, which made visibility bad for botanizing until near noon. Light rain began about 6:30 pm., soon after I had set up a light trap for insects for the first time on the trip. With the bush Finschhafen boy SONI (pronounced Sawni) and old-hand EDEWAWA as what I hope will be my final botany crew, I collected on the point of low mountains which comes very close to the Bulolo Road about 1/2 mile or so above camp. Followed first a new logging road (put in this week) up into the dipterocarp zone at about 200 feet above the main road, where this tractor road -- very steep and clayey -- ended. Carried on up the slopes from there in undisturbed primary forest in which a scattering of Anisoptera of commercial size occurs. Went to perhaps 700 feet. A little below my top level was a giant Anisoptera at least 5 ft. through above its short, thick buttresses and sprawling, massive surface roots. Got a good bag of subcanopy and substage trees, two or three ferns including Ophioglossum pendulum, the remarkable Dipodium in climbing orchids, my first Pandanus for the trip (small P. kivi aff.). A rather remarkable feature of this forest of the lower slopes was the abundance as a substage tree of Cnetum sp., the young leaves of which my boys collected as "cabbage". Palms of several species were a conspicuous feature, too, but I saw none in collectable condition. Only a small lizard in traps this morning. However, during our absence in Lae the lumbering boys brought in, alive, a Phalanger orientalis, 2 Petaurus, a Melomys (white bellied), and a Nyctimene. Schultz's caretaker brought in three Echymipera from his snares. So it was a busy day in the mammal department.