Pindiu, at an elevation of 915 meters, served as a shake-down camp for the remaining days of April. Mammal and herpetological collecting began immediately. Mist nets, set in a sago palm swamp below the village, caught Syconycteris and Paranyctimene. Traps took mostly Rattus exulans, and THE ONLY certainly the most abundant large fruit bat at Pindiu at the time of our visit. The vicinity of Pindiu is in garden plots for the most part, and little primary forest remains in this sector of the valley. However, the active felling of forest and the making of gardens resulted in a fine collection of snakes. Silver shillings were incentive evenough to ensure such specimens being brought in alive from a radius of several miles for our photographer, Grierson. Low clouds misted in our camp one night in two, and a good frog chorus was common on our ridge. Tape recordings were made of the songs of several species. Small airstrips in the interior of the Australian administered Territory of Papua and New Guinea have played a most important role in the post-war administration and economy of the eastern half of New Guinea. The strip at the Pindiu Patrol Post is a case in point. D. N. Ashton, District Officer of the Morobe District in 1964 (and now District Commissioner of the same important District, with headquarters at Lae), has kindly sent me the following notes on the history of the establishment of the Patrol Post at Pindiu and the building of the present airstrip. "When I arrived in the Morobe District on 28 May 1958 there was a Patrol Post serving the Pindiu area situated at Yunzain (Yungzain) in the Dedua Census Division [Finschhaven Subdistrict]. Access to Yunzain was by Land Rover over an atrocious road from Heldsbach on the [Finsch] coast through Sattelberg to Nanduo [Kotte Census Division]; thence a two and one half hour