129 Furosa Sunday, September 27. Clear last night; mist from before dawn to c. 8 a.m.; hot sunny day followed by showers beginning 4:45 with occasional mist driving up the valley. Botanized down the patrol track towards Kamina village, distance a mile or more. Results not very good. At about a couple of hundred feet below camp level native garden lands and regrowth appear, interestingly enough, with the appearance of abundant Castanopsis in the forest. Could not see any change in soil. An oak (leaves brown floccose below) was scattered through the mixed rain forest above the Castanopsis. Satanellus, the second for the trip, trapped last night in the gully below camp with a meat set. Monday, September 28. Rain set in about 7 last night and continued until past midnight. Camp very wet this morning, and sandflies troublesome. For the first time in months I got out the 6-12 bottle. A tremendous catch of insects at the lamp last night; best on the whole trip; but nothing very new and striking. The day spent on a search for bat caves and an examination of the forest on the other side of Okapa. We also intended to call on Maa, who was to have begun collecting ectoparasites of mammals and land birds for the Bishop Museum at Moifa. Met Maa about 10 miles from camp, on his way to visit us in a native-chauffeured Land Rover of the kuru team at Okapa. Tall, wispy gentleman with graying bristly black hair and open countenance. Evidently well up on insects and widely experienced in field work. Invited him to join us on the bat hunt, and we proceeded to Okapa to call on government and drop letters for posting. Six miles beyond Okapa on the old (west) road we stopped at a place where a cave was reported to lie under the road. A most unlikely looking spot, but there was a small sharp edged exposure of limestone and the entrance to a cave. Entrance went straight down for about 15-20 feet to a small chamber below which - seen through a hole too small for a man to squeeze through - was an apparently large chamber with water. No smell of bats and shots fired into the lower chamber did nothing to reveal the presence of any. John and Van went into the cave on a rope. This cave was in mixed rain forest. A passer-by told of another cave or cave entrance in a ravine below the road. Had him guide us in a search. Plenty of outcropping limestone but no hole found. Then proceeded less than a mile up the road, beyond the forest edge, where another cave was reported. John went in search of this with local guides but found nothing. Have an idea that caves exist there but the locals did not want us to see them. Returned down the road a couple of miles and had lunch on a small stream, and close to the high bank of a big, turbid creek (freshet after the rains of last night). There we were in Castanopsis forest -- on the ridge above and down to the bank of the creek. Some admixture of other tress but saw no beeches. Maa has been in Dutch New Guinea recently and will return there in February. Worked at Lake Sentani and Sarmi on the north coast, Fakfak and somewhere else on the south coast. Air travel is difficult he says. Dutch civil authorities are short of planes, but will not allow the well supplied missions to carry passengers. A Catholic mission now in the Balim in addition to the original