-105- Van acquiring many specimens by purchase from people of Opaigwari, who come in daily bringing mostly Pogonomys and small bats which they find in hollow trees. Results from traps very poor. New lines set today on a good running creek to the east. Sunday, August 23, 1953: Max. 30, Min. 19 C.(about 87 & 67 F.). Some overcast in mid afternoon, otherwise clear. No rain. Pleasant day, air noticeably drier. Best drying day in this camp for mosses and antibiotics materials put out in the sun. Quiet day in camp. My time spent in preparing plants on hand. Sent boys out to cut big trees but they got only one (Meliaceae). First cuscus for the area shot last night, but only 4 rats in 160 traps. Four species of fishes seined by Geoff from pools in the creek. Only visitors were a handful of Biniguni people with betel nut to trade to the boys. Boys bought a young cassowary from them for a tin of meat. Bird quickly killed and eaten, Van getting half the liver. Best liver I know of. Monday, August 24, 1953: Max. 30, Min. 18 C. Clear day; bright full moon. Followed the left-hand branch up a mile or so to where the banks became high and the completely dry bed was arched over by tall forest. Fair bag of plants including a big very prickly Calamus in fruit. These rattans or "lawyer canes" are about the most difficult plants to collect. A case of suspected serious illness today. After I had gone into the field Sigamotu was reported sick in the belly. Was examined by Geoff and Van and given 2 tabs of diodoquin, specified for amoebic dysentery. (Both of them have taken the drug in the past few days for upsets caused, I think, by a fouled waterbag). Upon visiting the patient I found him looking seedy but temperature was normal and he had missed out on his customary morning visit to the small-house. Had eaten nothing out of the ordinary except some very tiny bananas which a local native brought in yesterday. Finally I discovered that last night he want "kava-kava" (amok), let out some death wails, and ran off into the forest pursued by two comrades who brought him back and put him to bed. Suspect he was responsible for the firewood incident of a day or so ago and felt that the women having received no pay, put a curse on him via the dwarf bananas. I heard the wails in the night but thought one of the boys was fooling as they often do in their camp. Otherwise, the emphasis today has been on fish. On the way up the creek I came upon a man and his wife poisoning a small pool with "New Guinea dynamite" using a root cut into about 15-inch lengths, pounded on a log, dipped into water, then wrung out, making a milky cloud in the pool. The stupefied fish floated bottom up. Crayfish,