(162) present is the black-bik, similar to the Solomon's. This, a native verified. So the white-bik species taken on the small islands en route here are a special variety; I think a variation of the yellow-bik. Often the feathers in the bik are so tinged; the rest of the bird looks the same. I shall be interested to see whether the large ground dove compares to the island species (East). The one native village on Wlapas Is., numbers about 12 people. The skipper arranged to-day for one of the men to guide him up to the Mining outfit. Here we hope to get the iron plate for the broken starboard fore shroud drilled. Oct. 17- Teora still recovering. David, Charlie, and I landed at 7:30. Usual scarcity of small birds. I took a honey-sucker - dark, blue-black with a stem - very like the New Britain species - also another with yellow breast and gray head - which proved a female; evidently the cor- respondent of the black male, taken and described yes- terday. It rained like hell from 10:30 to 2:30. David and Charlie got back aboard about 1. I stayed out and got properly lost, being rewarded for my pains by another red-billed parrot, a cockatoo with a rather fine yellow crest, and one of the orange- mouthed fly catchers. Charlie had a pair of new birds - brown fly catcher, evidently the female of the