P. DeBenedictis 1964 Feb 10 Academy Bay, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos. woke up to beautiful clear weather after a fairly respectable rain last evening. Woke up slowly. Have two large blisters on the left side of my neck and a small one on the right side, which Dr. Martin punctures. Hurt a lot. They seem to be caused by masking the abundant small brown edemeiid beetle which forms large clusters around the lights at night. All the entomologists are covered with blisters although the critical experiments have yet to be performed. Spent the morning packing for the wood trip and drying out bird skins. The skeletons are still soaking. Will have to have something done about them! Photographed the baby teal which came in and got a picture of a ? Platypiza on some melons behind Snow's house. John Hendrickson and Ross Kiestu came back from Fernandina. They found lots of sign of Tortoise but no animal. Brought back lots of Tortoise tracks. Also brought back a big Drornicus occidentalis and 9 big hand Iguanas, al alius, plus 15? Tropidurus. They also caught 2 mockers and 4 finches (4 species) by noosing them. Saw another form of Drornicus. They said land Iguana were abundant, about 1 every 30 feet, and that the Tortoise is very, very rare. The soil there is apparently a pumice soil dependent on rainfall to maintain the vegetation. Shortly after this A #1 copier took people to the highlands to see Tortoise; Verkommen at the last minute tried to get a ride, was refused, blew up and moved out of the lab. This is about the 4th time he has blown up so far! Later