Back From Papua

Hobart M. Van Deusen '33, a member of the Mammal Department of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City since 1945, has recently returned from eight months in the eastern part of the Territory of Papua, with the Fourth Archbold Expedition to New Guinea. Proud of the collection of 98,000 zoological and botanical specimens brought back, Van Deusen has no regrets for the more conventional careers he gave up - including banking and medicine — to answer the call of the wild in inaccessible lands. This is the second Archbold Expedition he has been with, the first being to the Cape York Peninsula of Australia.

A partial inventory of the specimens obtained for the Museum Natural History implies that what may be a naturalist's dream becomes a layman's nightmare.

The most remarkable mammal in the collection is the long-snouted, heavilyfurred spiny anteater, cousin of the platypus, and the only other egg-laying mammal in the world. There are fine examples of tree-climbing kangaroos, golden-brown ringtail possums, "flying foxes" or fruit bats with a wingspread of five and one-half feet, giant tree rats, feather-tailed possums and, from the fabled caves of the region, a large variety of bats, including tube-nosed bats with eerie green, white and yellow spotting. Other oddities are "six o'clock crickets," whose timely chirpings were used by miners for changing shifts; frogs whose croaks resemble barnyard cackling; and tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that live in moist moss on the mountains.

Hobart Van Deusen has made numerous collecting trips on his own, and traces his love for the avocation which became his profession back to an early age. He lives in Montclair, N. J., with his wife and 17-year-old son.

HOBART VAN DEUSEN '33