-128- Friday, October 16, 1953: Max. 18, Min 13 C. Stars blazing through the treetops at 4:30 A.M.; mist and drizzle at dawn; spasmodic sunshine to 10:00; rain most of the day to 6 P.M.; moon showing through high clouds now (8:30). Saturated with the rain of the last two days, the brown peaty ground in camp is soggy and slushy. There is a damp chill in the air, except in my tent, which is our eating as well as my work place, and repository for Van's mammal trays, and where a lamp has been burning through the daylight hours of the past two days. Collected a short distance up to trail toward the crest of the range, mostly on bamboo-entangled slopes with bits of forest on ridge-tops. Gathered my 7th Cyathea and 5th Vaccinium for the locality. Away from the broad ridge upon which camp is situated, and on which the chief dominant is an oak or Castanopsis, the forests of both ravines and ridge crests is more mixed and there are no trees, apparently, which could be called major dominants. I still have to gain an understanding of these forests. Ken left for Bolu Bolu at 7 A.M., via Garuwata to bring supplies for #2 Camp. Have decided to close this present camp Saturday, 24th, and move down to #2, leave there on the 9th November, spend a day or two at Wakonai - chiefly for reported bat caves - and leave Goodenough for Normanby Island during the weekend of November 14. Have so advised Ramsden and Buntings - the former having offered to move us to Normanby, the latter to arrange for boat transport if Ramsden should be unavailable. Saturday, October 17, 1953: Max. 18.5, Min 14 C. Misty, threatening dawn, heavy thunder to NE (thunder in east last evening); alternating cloud and sun during day; no rain. Botanized downstream on the creek with the long name. For a wet ravine the flora is poor. Notable accessions: a red-flowered epiphytic Agapetes and futile material of the characteristic small-leaved bamboo of the forest. Nothing in traps for the second night in succession. The mammal situation somewhat relieved by Garuwata men who arrived this afternoon with a young mountain cuscus and a Pogonomys. An adult cuscus brought in by our native hunter. With the locals came a drum of peas which we left at Garuwata on the way up, a bit of garden truck; a betel-nut to sell to our boys for the weekly issue of tobacco which was handed out today. A note from Ken by the pea carrier. He was to have slept at Garuwata last and arranged for the capture of small bats from a rock cave at our Waterfall Camp. Instead, he rushed through to Wakonai.