Tuesday, Sept. 1. Barometer still high. L.23, P. 10. Weather fair. Only two mammals in traps - a young Dendron and a Melomys musculus. Archbold reports that they are now in Port Ronilly, clearing today. The soil in this region seems to consist a sort of surface lawn - pan with laterite pebbles scattered over it. Underneath there is a subsoil of stiff clay, a mixture of rather large particles of red + gray clays. At the camps site that clay goes down for at least 6 feet (sample). Even in the woods the laterite is plentiful. I'm curious about this lake. Its uniformity of depth and its scattering of islands is hard to account for. Perhaps- it represents an old river bed - or again it may have been ridgey country which was warped downwards + had its low parts drowned by water from the Fly R. Lake Murray gives the appearance of such an origin, only in its case there are at least two sub-mixed rivers flowing into it and it has an outlet to the Strickland River. In the afternoon I took two of the boys to put out 100 traps over the burnt savanna area where we had to kangaroo hunt. 70 were set at the margin of the burnt grass and the swamps; and 30 on the slightly higher ground forming the ridge - perhaps 3 feet above swamp level. Wednesday, Sept. 2. In Crea's line which was partly changed yesterday nothing. In the new line in the burnt area seem: 1 Phascolos, 6 Rattus bactysimines, 1 Melomys musculus. Only two, a R. bactystimines and the Melomys, were taken up on the dry ridge. This is about the catch I've had in Papua, the proportion of catch to total traps being 7 %. The pouch of the Phascolos can be sent distinctly to pen forwards. No young in it. Rend found about a dozen Emballonura nigrescens away low palms and shot two. They were only 6 or 8 feet from the ground when first flushed but flew up into the top of a palm + hung within a friend.