L.10, P. 8 After skinning out the rats I had Aia help me straighten out the bat net and shift it over into Beeach's yard. In the afternoon I sent him out rebait while I got another twenty traps ready and took them out to Vernon's farm. Incidentally I checked up on the thoroughness of Aia's work and found it to be good. Getting back to Beech's farm from the Doctor's place (they are contiguous, as the sketch map shows, I found Beech and Rand who had accompanied us out, ready to leave. Out in the main road we ran over a black snake about a yard in length, which it seems is called a Brown Snake. Got back just ahead of a heavy shower which no doubt spoiled flat our bait more or less. A "boy", who is Mission Schoolteacher came in and offered me a lot of long-dead, badly battered moths that I had to decline. He wants to ca[illegible] for us however, and I strongly suspect that he will use the school children to get things. He says his name is Sampson And he had with him an old number of the National Geographic in which insects were featured many in color. His idea was that I should pick out the ones that I particularly desired. However I just told him to bring everything I also showed him how to put them up in papers. He is going to give the matter a trial of a couple of weeks and them bring in the spoils for inspection and comments. The bat net caught a small dove for us tonight which we released however because it is a very common species and Rand has taken it often before. Tuesday, March 3. Took Aia out with me at 6 a.m. in Beech's car so that I might check up on his memory of where the trap line runs and so that I might show him the positions of forty more traps. Took a green frog, a very large skink, two smaller skinks, a rail, two Rattus brachyrrhinus, and two Melomys muscalis. On getting back to headquarters I found that the police had a force of prisoners out cutting the grass in our field with machetes. Skinned out specimens. Showed Aia how to put boot screws in boots, then had him straighten out the bat net and extract a very large beetle which had entangled itself pretty badly. Took a few photograph s of the village and the preparation of the aeroplane flat which is now nearly an acre in extent and should serve admirably to beach, turn and service the 'plane. After lunch sent Aia out with twenty traps to set all by himself. This is the first time I have let him do the business entirely alone, and I shall go tomorrow with him to see where he located them and what he caught. At Dr. Vernon's I found Vernon himself spraying his kapoks. He had killed a snake which I took, and afterwards I took a track southwest from in front of the mission, which passes around a fenced native garden and bears around west through Eucalyptus savanna (i. e. through tall trees widely spaced and the intervening areas covered with long grass nearly head-high. The whole of the western edge of that savanna is bordered with what nearly approaches the gallery-woods of South America, only instead of fringing rivers, these forests appear to fringe true gangrove swamps. While at Vernon's I took several pictures, one of a nest of tiny native bees which Brass had found that morning and placed on the picnic table. The bees were nesting in the tuberous base (a very large structure nearly as big as a small football) of a Hydnohytum (Rubiaceae), and in the same mass of plant structure was a nest of small brown ant. The ants and bees left eachother strictly alone neither transgressing the borderline of the others' nest. Am planning to go out and sleep at Vern n's farm tonight if the weather is right. Will put on the jacklight and see whether I can spot any eyes. Have little hope of seeing anything, though. Tracks, which ought to show plainly on the muddy surface of the ground, have been entirely absent, excepting those of pigs. I mentioned above that prisoners were out cutting our grass: Well a while later the police sergent (native) could be heard shouting out remarks from upethe hill at the police station. He continued talking Walked out to Vernon's in the light of the half moon. Out jacklighting but saw only nighthawks, one of which I brought back.