We had no visitors today and nobody passed along the trail, in conse- quence that we have no knowledge of the Leisha, our food or anything else. There is a chance that if the ship should come in, somebody will bring up our cargo and in that case he or they will be almost certain to stop at Iron Range and pick up our mail also, but it is a very unlikely thing. Our time here is short, however, and we shall move back to Iron Range on Monday morning, anyway. The, a week from tomorrow, we start the long journey south to Coen though we may be a little longer en route than we first planned. It is proposed to make camp of two or three days each at the Pascoe and the Archer River crossings. Those would not make much difference to our journey as we should simply cut down the length of time at Coen, if necessary. The trip from Iron Range to Coen is somewhere about a hundred and sixty miles and that from Coen to Laura, if we go out that way instead of Annir River, is slightly less. At Cooktown we shall probably have to spend a day or so re- fitting before we start the final series of camps. Thursday, 15 July 1948. I was aroused at intervals last night by the rain drops landing like the explosions of hand grenades on the can- avas of my tent, tight as a drumhead from the rain that had fallen during the day. The coffee, Nescafe which I had received on my birthday was doubly welcome at breakfast, both for its flavor and as a restorative. The weather is actually cold, during the night. Rain fell intermittently all during the day and collecting is still quite poor. Nothing particularly eventful happened at all and consequently there is not much to write about here. There is a gale roaring above our heads as I write and the conditions on top of Tozer, for example, or down at Portland Roads, would be pretty severe. I can only hope that Leisha had not had the sad ending of Lochael and that our stores will have reached Iron Range by the time we do, on Monday. Friday, 16 July 1948. George was very elated this morning to find in one of his traps a specimen of Mesembryomys, a very rare sort of thing which does much to make up for the rather poor collecting which has been the rule at this camp. Mesembryomys is a large thing, about two feet long including tail, and is a sort of squirrel grey. The hair is rather coarse and the tail ends with a white plume for the last couple of inches. The poor collecting has been due largely to the habit of drovers and others passing along the trail of burning up the country. The idea is to get rid of the old, tall grass so that new shoots can come in, on which the cattle can feed. Of course it kills off the natural fauna and does not help mammal collectors. The burning, we have been informed, extends as far south as Coen; it will not mat- ter very greatly as between here and Coen we shall be collecting only at the Archer River and Wenlock, the Pascoe River camp having been cancelled. An odd thing about this country is a direct result of the burning and con- sequent maintenance of a low level of vegetation, in height; the ant-hills of course are uninjured and from a distance they stick up above the low flora and look much like a ragged and little used graveyard. My own morning gave me good collecting in the way of bugs, my gully, which I have mentioned before, proving to be a very fine collecting ground. In the afternoon I stripped down to shorts end, with Roy, went fishing. We had only slightly better luck than we had on the Claudie, getting five small fish, but it was fun and we shall do the same again tomorrow, taking Van along as well. The river varies in depth but I do not think there coarse is any fear of crocs this