-66- The usual routine for me - preparing collections in the morning (to take advantage of the warmth of daylight hours for lamp-drying of materials), collecting in the afternoon. In two or three hours in the field I collect enough to occupy me next morning. Today I found my third tree-fern for the locality, a fine, red-hairy Dicksonia. Yesterday's take in forest ferns was 26 app. Today I have at least half a dozen more. Orchids are here in fair variety but so far only 3 spp. have been found in flour - one of them a pink Spiranthes ? from the grasslands, an orange and yellow Dendrobium, and a nondescript clumped epiphyte in the forest. Numerous rodents being trapped; a Rattus in forest, another on grasslands; 1 (or 2) Melomys in forest. A big, very dark brown Phalanger shor by Van several nights ago. Tonight Van bagged a beautiful Pseudocheirus, greenish gold on the back; and Ken shot a very different small species with almost black and white face. Saturday, May 23, 1953: Max 20 degrees, Min. 4 degrees C. A relatively warm night and no one awoke this morning until the boy at length, at 6:30, opened the flap of the tent to bring morning tea. Scuds of cloud, occasional brief mist in tree tops, high light overcast tonight, ring around the moon. A definite change of weather. Rain soon. Dryer overloaded with my extra pressure collecting. Did field work this A.M. and this afternoon began preparing material for preservation with formalin. Worked down the gully from camp, descending about 100 m. Good travel along the widening stream, but the head of the gully has proved richer in plants. Dicksonia very plentiful as a tree fern up to at least 10 m. tall. Collected a big-fruited fig common as a large tree in the fullies. Many mosses. The variety in mosses and hepatics seems infinite; many beautiful species, the most striking being a Dawsonia looking like seedling conifers of some kind, and a magnificent epiphytic Spiridens (?) Sunday May 24, 1953: Max. 21 degrees, Min. Zero C. Relative humidity 7 A.M. 72% before sunrise; noon 40%. (bright sun). In this sheltered hollow sunrise is about 7:30, sundown about 4 o'clock. While botanizing north of camp this A.M. I met a runner bringing mails. He left Biniguni at daylight and made the 7000 ft. climb in four hours. Fast travel. Ken and Van with 3 boys succeeded in opening a track to the Gwariu River which can now be reached in 1½ hours or less from camp. Two gunshots near camp later in the afternoon, and two blackish wallabies brought in by David. Definitely a forest wallaby, shot on the edge of the grasslands. Monday, May 25, 1953: The second whole day without a cloud or mist over camp. Temperatures: Max 22 degrees, Min. 1.0 C. The coldest morning so far. Very heavy frost in camp hollow and slopes above. Bracken on the grasslands has been whitened and withered by the recent frosts. Water is frozen over in camp vessels. The tents have a rime of ice inside and out before sunrise. Intense sunshine and virtual absence of clouds and mist for days is drying out the upper parts of the mountain. A result if grassfires, lit despite my warnings. Ken started it by firing some hundreds of acres of grass on the way to the Gwariu