joint meeting again. Roig was there but kept to himself. Zuleta and Vitullo did a lot of the running of the things, Susana Merani forcefully expressed her opinions in the business meeting. The plan is to have as many as 10 symposia in the 3-day joint meeting, each symposium jointly headed by an Argentine and a Yankee. Much enthusiastic discussion about mice with Gloria de Villafane, Patricia Marconi, Maria Isabela Bellocq, and David Bilenca. If I understood correctly, next year's meeting will be in San Luis. Adrian, as winner of the Society's annual prize, gave a fine talk, and Bibiana Vila was awarded a prize for her vicuna article in Ciencia Hoy. I gave some Lestodelphys skeletal material to Bianchini to deliver to Pascal in La Plata. December 5 - More Mammal Society meetings. Visited Martha Piantanida's Akodon colony. Saw a litter of 2-week-old longipilis. She says they didn't breed until she put them into a big cage with a plastic feed sack in it, under which they made a nest. She has not been gathering data. Then lunch with Jim Mills and his wife. They are on a Junin Virus project between Johns Hopkins and the Hemorrhhaig Fever Institute in Pergamino. They are doing small-mammal censuses etc. near Pergamino. She is a botanist, he an "ecologist". Then visited Reig's lab which is 50 ft. from where the meetings were in session. There were 6 or 8 people working in the lab, some of them processing the tucos and mice that Adrian and I sent last week, but as far as I could tell none of his group was participatiung (or attending) the meetings. Maria Alicia Barros was there, and Marcelo Ortells gave me a reprint of Bligmodontia caryotypes. Probably a northern species (Peru/Bolivia/Chile) and two or more southern species, the one in Neuquen (and probably Bariloche region) without a name. There was little participation by people from La Plata, nobody from Tucuman, and neither Ojeda nor Julio Contreras. The slate of nominees was Susana Merani for President and Julio Contreras for VP. Presumably they were elected. We left before the clausura. Tea with many of the Nottebohm clan. They say that things are very dry at La Maya (Cordoba Province). December 6 - Flew back to Bariloche on the early flight. The steppe still looks dry, but the mallin at Estancia El Condor has turned green. Rosa mosqueta has started blooming; Scotch Broom and Notro still blooming but tired. December 7 - cool and cloudy. Resfriado. Dinner at Tarak's with Christie, Mane, brother-in-law Alejandro Abedissian and wife Aspe. December 8 - To La Veranada with Gwenn Brewer and Josh Brown. Took some leaf samples from marked clumps, and waklked up into the woods along the woodcutters road beyond our study grid. Just after passing through the nire and getting into the lenga, we found two flowering clumps off bamboo., I think these are the first we have found at La Veranada. Perhaps it is sugnificant that they were both in the lenga forest on taller, longer- leafed culms. Then drove down to the south end of Lago Guillelmo and set traps in nire/bamboo/lush green grass. Obviously not much grazing pressure there