Hawkey James 1976 Journal Hotel Betthangel, Catemaco, St. Ursary, Mexico February reserve near the coast is mostly cut over. A (conf'd) worker at the reserve told us that there would be an 8 km walk to the crater from the coast and referred us to the head of the biological reserve located in an office along Mex Hwy 180 in Bahamijan (just W of Catemaco). We followed up this lead and were shown a road to the crater from San Andres Tuxtla (~25 km by foot). - we'll try this road tomorrow. All in all, there was a very frustrating day, with many hours wasted looking for roads leading to the highlands. One high point though, was during a short excursion made this AM to the low hills NE of Catemaco in the hopes of finding vestiges of forest. The area is extremely dry and cut over, with the only vestige found being steep slopes leading down to a large cove of the Laguna Catemaco. However, people living where we parked our car claimed to know of salamanders, and upon our return we all looked for some in their yards, and found one B. platydactyla under a pile of wood chips in their grassy yard. Further looking into area turned up 2 B. wrighti but no more salamanders. Apparently, these areas represent the few suitable for salamander activity in the dry season