L. 25, P. 11 The rat is rather large (size of a large alexandrinus), but it has peculiarly long, narrow hind feet, built much as those of Leptomys, for which reason I think it may be a hopping species. Its ears are moderately large, and its skull of peculiar type which must be studied later after it has been cleaned. On the road back and a couple of miles from here Rand saw a boy shoot a Petaurus from a savanna tree, again showing evidence of its preference for a tree-savanna habitat. The new rat had the tip of the tail missing, so we could not know its length. It was taken out of a hollow tree in tree-savanna, but down near the base of the tree. The mammary formula is 2-2 - 4, a formula which turns up repeatedly in widely distinct genera of Papuan rodents. Tues. Dec. 22. Shot another Myotis (?) last night. Fruit bats few and very high. A lot of natives including a boy who speaks both Motuan and English, by name Gaindi. We had heard of him from Austen at Daru. A whole flock of dogs came with them. Catch a forest Melomys, two ringens. Rec'd and sent Christmas telegrams to U. S. this morning. Port promised to get me a sched. with Daru, but I listened in to their sched. and of course he had to forget all about it. Thye work again at 2.30 this afternoon so perhaps I can get one of them then. Wanted to get in touch with Daru operator, but Moresby forgot to tell him. Quite urgent for me to know whether the "Veriveri" in commission again to take me out in time for the mid-January "Papuan Chief" to Moresby. If "Veriveri" not available then must make canoe trip to mouth of Mai Kussa and walk overland the 50 miles to Mabaduane where I can get a sailing canoe for Daru. Am going to wait until next schedule on Christmas Day and try again to get thru to Daru. Meanwhile have ordered the canoes for thw Mai Kussa trip to be brought up to Tarara from Jaro Two Petaurus brought in in the evening, male and female. Wed. Dec. 23. The boys changed 200 traps yesterday, so the catch jumped up. No change in quality however: 7 R. ringens and 1 Melomys. Sent boys out bat hunting and myself set out for a good long walk along the WSW trail. Suppose I got out about 2½ miles. Most of the way the tree-savanna comprises trees of about three inches in diameter. Near the camp they reach six inches to a foot; and about two miles out I reached a quite large patch where none exceeded two inches -- mere saplings in appearance but so far as can be judged newer to grow any larger. The pink flowers of a little sundew were scattered all through the grass; also a number of the grasses themselves seem to be coming into flower after the recent showery weather (it is fairly fine though overcast these days). Gororo came back with a bat (Rhinolophus ?) which he got out of a tree with sulphur fumes and a butterflynet held against the hole. The other boys though they came later had none. They pick up traps tomorrow in anticipation of moving down to the mouth of the Mai Kussa by canoe. Was amused and interested this evening to see that our boys, the police boy and medical boy had constructed cricket bats out of the bases of coconut leaves, the clasping basal part being the blade and the petiole of the leaf the handle. The ball was whittled out of wood or somethingvegetable, they had two sets of wickets made of sticks. Several of them had evidently played a lot -- probably at one of the eastern mission stations. Two at least of the crowd were good bowlers and one was very good with his coconut-leaf bat. All have good eyes and can catch like nobody's business. The wireless "air" is full of flying Christmas greetings. If you want to catch just how much Christmas still means to the World, just listen in to any of the commercial morse stations. They are shooting through continuous streams of Xmas Greetings. I heard a number of California stations and Manila was working duplex. And I can only receive freq. 30 to 50 meters.