Pearson - 1991 2 Mus, 2 Bligmodontia, 5 Akodon xanthorhinus. One xantho was dead, one unmarked, all the others marked. The catch is about a fifth of what it was last winter. Population dropped sharply after a deep snow followed by rain. The nearest (and only) house nearby is about 100 m away. A big, dead, grey cat was lying dead just off the grid, about 40 ft. from the airport road. October 24.- Up to Cerro Otto to our bamboo clumps. The lenga at that level was leafing out. Day sunny and warm. Lots of earth cores; a few drifts of snow still. Dug up an entire, isolated clump of bamboo near A2. It consists of 18 culms ranging from less than 3 mm diameter at ground level to 20mm in a graded series. It will be known as the Dead Sea Clump; see bamboo species account. From Cerro Otto we could see a strange cloud of smoke or dust over the Rio Limay at the east end of the Lake. People say that it was a result of an explosion of Volcan Hudson down south in August. It spread a few cms to 1 m of ash over Santa Cruz and/or Chubut, which killed thousands of sheep that were already in bad shape because of 5 years of drought. Some say the ash got into the wool weighed the sheep down so much that they perished. Certain wind conditions still stir up the dust, and this is what we were seeing. The airport at Viedma was closed today because of blowing ash. Werner and Joanna Flueck came for yerba mate, then Bettinellis. October 25.- Bariloche. Sunny and warm. Bettinellis for mate, then to Flueck's for dinner in their house near the top of Palacios Street. He is trying for a faculty position at the University. They are sort of surveying where the deer are. They say that the deer on Peninsula Huemul and Fortin Chacabuco have become so small that they are not attracting hunters. The deer on Estancia San Ramon are still large. A group of Germans at Esquel/El Bolson is promoting reforestation with native trees. Another German project is at INTA here in Bariloche, on Desertification of Patagonia. They have the latest in sattelite imagery analysis already installed here. Flueck says that they found a huemul horn on Peninsula Huemul recently, and that it appeared to be not more than a year or two dead. October 26.- Bariloche. Warm and sunny, no wind. Went up Cerro Otto again. Dug up another small clump of bamboo on the ski slope that had been cut in 1985-86. This clump did not have big old rhizomes as expected, but seemed to have come from a seed about like the Dead Sea Clump. Some others dug up with big old cut culms had big rhizomes etc. as expected. Another excavation was of a single yearling culm, all by itself. A big fist-sized tuco burrow went through the soft fluffy soil right past it. All of the big roots, buds, and most of the rhizome had been eaten off of it. There was no trace of any other roots, rhizomes, or shoots. October 28.- Bariloche. Morning partly overcast but warm. Met Peter Symson on