89. That tunnel runs directly into the side of the mountain for a distance of perhaps two hundred feet and terminates at a hole or shaft about twenty feet deep, at the bottom of which another tunnel continues into the earth. The bot- tom of that shaft is reached only by a slimy piece of pipe, down and up which one swarms. In the afternoon we had netted the entrance to the tunnel and had gone in as far as the hole, turning out, as I said earlier, thousands of bats of two species, but mainly of one. It was decided to go again in the evening to see if more of the second species could be obtained but I had my own night work to do and did not take part. Barrie went down the inner hole the found it partly blocked in places by falls from the roof. He was wearing his headlight but of course none of us dare take or use guns inside, lest we cause further falls. He had crawled through a nearly blocked place and was straightening up again when he saw the head and about four feet of a black snake gazing at him. Having nothing to de- fend himself with, he crawled back through the narrow part of the passage as fast as he could go and in doing so knocked his headlight against the tunnel roof and disconnected it from the battery, leaving himself in pitch blackness, possibly with the snake crawling after him. He rushed on but got off the main corridor somehow and crashed against the wall of a small, shallow chamber that had been carved in one side of the tunnel. Then he howled for somebody to flash the their lights and of course was further shocked at being told the lights were on as he could not see them on account of being in the chamber. Finally he scram- bled back to the bottom of the hole, scaled the pipe and was hauled out quiver- ing by Van and George. Some time soon we shall have to go down again and get the snake but I al- ways carry two lights in case of the failure of one of them, and shall be re- lieved of that part anyway. Poor Barrie, though - any one of the three inci- dents, the snake, the loss of light and his getting into the small chamber would have been plenty but to get them all at once was quite a tough experience. Saturday, 12 June 1948. This morning was spent largely in preparing the next order of supplies; after this I think there will be only one more. In the afternoon George, Van and I went to the mine again. George and Van to collect more bats and I to see if I could pick up the snake that had scared Barrie last night. I went on ahead to construct a ladder to help us at the point where the hole leads to the lower level and inside we all worked together. We climbed down the ladder and found the lower passage only extended about fifty feet and there had been several falls of the roof, as Barrie had described, causing the passage to become so small that standing upright was impossible and at times we had to crawl through the accumulated droppings. At the end, or as far as we could go, a heavy fall of the roof blocked the passage up completely. It had once been shored up with timbers, which were half buried in later earth and debris which had come down. Near the roof there was a small hole leading through to the rest of the passage and the snake must have taken refuge in there as we could see no trace of it in that part of the passage that could be travelled. Being foiled on my snake hunt, I joined in with the bat hunters and they brought back a large collection. They are the same species as those taken yesterday, though they did get some more of the rare ones, and I do not quite see why they want so many of the same kind. The only untoward event in the afternoon occurred during the process of