we pitched our camp shows on the large-scale maps/Naru Point and is about four miles south of Somerset. Probably it will receive that name. The shore here is composed of sand dunes, lying some yards back from a gentle surf. Rivulets of fresh water run down from the Bronto Lagoon and we are camped beside one of them. Actually the camp occupies three of those gullies. Joe, the cook-house, George and Van occupy one; south of them Oen and I share space and south of us again, George Moreton and Willie Somerset have set up their shelter. Martin Ropeyarn did not join us and presumably has not yet returned from his walk-about. I cannot yet give much of a description of our surroundings other than the fact that we are in one of the scallops of this beach which form Newcastle Bay and there are headlands both north and south of us. Behind us there is flat country with low, scrubby bushes running a mile or so back to Bronto La- goon and from there back to Lockerbie there is deep forest and scrub. We have not succeeded in escaping the green ants which seem to sting with a bit more abandon here. They cannot penetrate a mosquito net, though, and I know I shall sleep soundly tonight. The wind in the trees and the beat of the surf is a lullaby that few people can resist, I least of all. Ginger Dick is spending the night with us, being unwilling to tackle the journey back in darkness. We were badly bogged for a half-hour in one spot and he will be going back alone. Friday, 7 May 1948. The day has been one of constant heavy rain-squalls, with a very watery sun shining fitfully between. We can see the rain coming from the south-east end, and if we are lucky, can take cover at the crucial moment. It doesn't matter a great deal though as the tem- perature is high and perspiration profuse. Moisture of one kind is much the same as moisture of another. The final name decided on for the camp is Newcastle Bay, 2½ miles S of Somerset. That lands more or less on the camp and covers divergence in any direction. This morning, after the departure of Ginger Dick, I went north along the cost, skirting Naru Point, on the south of which we have our camp. Collect- ions for reptiles and bugs were poor but I managed to pick some likely spots which I shall visit tomorrow. What struck me most was the cruelty of the cost. The headlands are composed of iron-stone, a reddish rock split and channelled until it looks almost like a coral formation. It cuts through the leather or rubber of the soles of shoes like a hot knife through butter and the ship or man cast upon those rocks and rolled around by the force of the waves would soon have every bit of flesh or covering stripped from the ribs. George and I bumped into each other at intervals through the morning and in the afternoon started out in the same direction. We travelled along the hard sand of the shore but George left it and worked inland before I did, Behind our camp there is a swampy marsh and it was my idea to travel down the shore perhaps a half or full mile, turn west into the sand dunes and scrub, pass them to the marsh and travel north again until I reached the level of the camp. I found out, however, that further south there is no swampy marsh, only thick forest, behind the dunes. I got into that and soon found that I had no space for working even if there was anything to work on. Machete work was necessary all the time. I struggled along for an hour and a half and then turned myself around and cut my way out to the shore again. Len did well with his plants and the second specimen of mammal brought in was new to the collection so far, but things in my department did not prosper.