untouched except for 2 Phyllotis and one sprung empty cage trap with apple bait. Night was partly cloudy, calm. At daybreak heard the monotonous seed snipe, the gloaming whistler (winnowing of snipe), sounded like Peruvian altiplano. Also Cal quail and barn owl. At the base of the cliff is a grazed juncus mallin with a little bit of water, rising to dryer turf full of tuco/Reithrodon holes. The steppe across the road is sandy, with tuco burrows, rather lush bushes sort of like the bajada east of Comallo, with neneo, cola de pichi (Nassauvia), 2 kinds of Senecio, Stillingia (Sapium), and other thorny bushes, a couple of Berberis bushes, no duranzillo. Heard no tucos. Morning clouded up. A quick look at a few of the owl pellets picked up yesterday under the cliff indicates Ctenomys, Reithrodon, Phyllotis, Abrothrix longipilis (sic!), and Akodon xanthorhinus. No Auliscomyss yet. The owner came by. He was worried about fire because things are so dry. Says the Senecio bushes are dead because it is the 4th year of drought. He also says a big pale fox has appeared in recent years and that it is bad on sheep. He doesn't call it Zorro Colorado; has some other name. He didnt really respond to my talking about a small marsupial and showing him a jaw. Heard a tuco briefly in the morning: tucatuc, tucatuc. Caught one nearby later. That makes total catch 2 Phyllotis and 1 tuco. There is almost no bunchgrass in this sample of the steppe, and only scattered Stillingia plants. They are blooming and this morning some of them were swarming with ants up in the branches. Something nips off the branches, not just near the base but siometimes 3 feet up, even too high for hares. In a neneo tangle under one Stillingia was a nest made of 2-inch cut Stillingia twigs, containing mouse droppings the size of Phyllotis. This was at least 100 yards from the rocks. Picked up the trap line near camp, set others in tunnels at the base of 4 Stillingia, and rebaited the Lestodelphys traps at the cliff with tuco meat. Baited the Stillingia traps with canned tuna in oil. Forgot to mention 4 traps around a recently dead horse carcass; nothing. Rhea droppings. Then in the afternoon moved camp 1km east to another canyon with pretty much the same vegetation, a bit more Stillingia. Set traps in tunnels under about 10 Stillingia. You can find good tunnels under practically every Stillingia, and numerous ant tunnels but not necessarily ants. Maybe Notiomys is an ant predator? Morning overcast, afternoon clear. Warm, not windy. 8km W Clemente Onelli November 7- Night was thin overcast, not cold. The dawn bird chorus included a tuco tuco (tucacuc, tucacuc). The traps around about 8 Stillingia bushes (about 16 traps) were undisturbed. Picked them up. Then moved back down the road to 9 km W