173 Kuranda-Cairns-Brisbane Wednesday, December 30. My sister Edna Henderson having returned from a few days at the seaside, I moved out to her house in the suburb of Hawthorne this morning. Most of the day at Queensland Herbarium. Staff on alternating duty through the holidays and Lindsay Smith there today. Met at herbarium Dr. and Mrs. L.S. Dillon of Texas A. & M. who are about to return home after a year in Australia on a NSF grant. Dillon an entomologist now working on a classification of mammals. Based at Queensland Univ. Learned something about McDougal, head entomologist, Dept. Agriculture & Stock, and officer concerned with administration of fauna protection acts. Impossible fellow according to Smith, who has a brother, an entomologist, working under McDougal. Vague and indecisive about everything but his antipathy towards America and Americans. Smith warns me to have nothing to do with him. McDougal was the man found so difficult by the Spalding-Peterson Expedition. Thursday, December 31. Day spent at the Herbarium and in a round of the bookshops. Finished, on a Herbarium typewriter, my par-end and project-end report to NSF and put it into the mail. Brisbane (population plus 500,000) is well supplied with bookshops, but no longer has a good dealer in second hand books. Barker's used to be a place where one could pick up good things, well classified; now sells only school and college text books second hand. Days in Brisbane are hot - into the high 80's, but nights are pleasantly cool. Friday, January 1. With the Henderson's to Boonan, about 60 road miles SW of Brisbane. Farming and Dairying area. Very prosperous. A season of ample rains and country looks very well. Saturday, January 2. Dinner in evening with Larry and Mrs., Dillon of Texas A&M. Both entomologists originally from Reading, Conn. As a staff wife, she has been working in forest genetics at A & M. On NSF grant, he for a year has been working in Australia (mainly Queensland) on relationships of mammals. Considers differences in soft parts more fundamental than teeth and claws. Studying heart, brain, reproductive tract, etc. So far only assembling materials. No publication as yet. Dillons return to U.S. by Matson Line ship leaving Sydney January 20. Sunday, January 3. Afternoon with the S.T. Blakes at The Gap, new suburb in the gap through which Ennogera Creeks flows between Mt. Coot-tha and the Taylor Range. Blake is 1st assistant Govt. Botanist. Has very good young planted collection of mainly Australian plants. Some of the plantings (Plechanthus, Euryctes, etc.) for taxonomic purposes. Children Betty (c. 11), Malcolm (c. 8). Blake on an ANZAAS committee which has reported on the great need for a new Flora of Australia. Only published work is Bentham's 7-volume Flora Australiensis of 1863-1878. This contains c. 7800 spp. vascular plants; over 15,000 now known. Estimated that special full-time staff of c. 20 would take about 20 years to do the job. Flora to include what is known of anatomy,