52 Naturalist at Large 



in front of its snout. Garman called this astonishing eel 

 Khinojmiraena quaesita. It was long and slender and 

 brown. For some reason or other I remembered exactly 

 how it looked. No second specimen has ever been found, 

 so far as I know. 



While frogging about on an Amboina reef at low tide, 

 I saw a sky-blue eel, long and slender and quite active 

 when we rolled over a slab of coral rock. By great good 

 luck I caught it, and in a second I said to myself, "That's 

 another Rhinomuraena and a new one" — and it was. I 

 described it and called it R. amboinensis and have it well 

 preserved to this day. No other specimen has ever been 

 reported. Is it not an extraordinary coincidence that the 

 only two examples of this unique eel should both have 

 found their way to Cambridge — one shipped in by the old 

 missionary ship The Momijig Star in 1887, the other found 

 by me exactly twenty years later more than a thousand 

 miles from Ebon? 



Our visit to Humboldt Bay was the climax of the trip 

 and our leisurely return a pleasant aftermath. All along 

 the line we picked up objects which had been collected 

 and saved for our return. We stopped at just as many 

 places on the way back as we did going out. Several un- 

 expected delays caused by waiting for dammar gum to be 

 brought down from the interior gave us a chance to garner 

 a great store of ethnological objects for the Peabody Mu- 

 seum. It was well that we did, for in those days Papua 

 was still unspoiled. Of course, I have Uved in hope that 

 by some chance I might once see the interior. 



It was at Hong Kong that we met Mr. Daniel Russell 

 of the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs. He came from 



