L. 25, P. 18 Yesterday afternoon I sent a messenger to Mabaduane to say to send on the sailing canoe at once. This gives me a second string to my bow in case Beach should have somehow slipped up. And besides I notice that in his telegram Beach says he is sending the canoe to Torji (on Strachan Island) instead of to Buji where we are. Now I hadn't intended going to Torji anyhow. The medical boy Kousa who is a native of Mabaduane asked if he might go along with the messenger and return to get his medical kit on the sailing canoe. He is a good boy and speaks and reads English well, so he may be able to hurry matters up. The boy who went as guide over the first part of the road returned this afternoon, so Kousa who picked up another guide in the fashion of the country must be well along by this time. The people here think he will reach Mabaduane tonight. If so the canoe may well come tomorrow or the day after. A strong squall this afternoon, without very much rain. Late this p.m. with the tide low I walked out to the west point of limestone, taking a compass to try to get bearing of the rock seams. The limestone however proved on closer examination to be so greatly and irregularly cracked that I could make nothing definite out as to its structural character. I could look along to the west and see Strachan Isl. Across the cove to the east I found that there is a similar point of limestone which I next visited. It was slightly lower than the west point but otherwise identical. Boigu and its two sister islands are almost certainly also made of this limestone, and rocks of the same material (in appearance) jut through the surface of the sea at low tide in a couple of places. Just at high tide line the laterite nodules common on every elevated surface have been washed and rounded by the waves into a small beach of tiny smoothly rounded gravelly pebbles. I have seen no trace of the pumice so common at or just above the normal high water level at Daru and Old Mawatta. The laterite beach also occurs at Azasaco. Mon. Jan. 4. Last night I walked out to the limestone point at dusk. Sure enough the fruit bats were coming across from Boigu. I suppose I must have seen fully fifty coming in out of the dusk across the water. Shot three, all males. Their flying is slightly more wheeling and dipping in character that that of the bigger bats of the Fly River, which seem to fly almost by compass. With the jacklight I later saw four more Petaurus, all of which I collected. They dodge about among the coconut inflorescences, sometimes running out along the petioles of the great leaves. I have yet to see one fly. Shot one however back of the swamp in a ti tree, where it was sitting across a small branch. The eyes shine brilliantly. In traps today a lot of R. brachyrhinus and M. muscalis. Also a small Isoodon and a Phascogale. We are making up eighteen mammals today. Shot a few birds for the bird boys to work on. My boys (the Island boys) put on a small dance of their own; I suppose to show these locals a thing or two. However they didn't come near eclipsing the local art. The best they could do was jump up and down either standing or squatting. They did have a wider repertoire with their borrowed drums however. Each "number" is very short, and as ended with a series of shishing noises followed by a grand roll of the drums. The local people courteously brought torches for illumination and for warming up the drum heads which to remain resonant must be continually dried out. About 11.30 a big sailing canoe came tacking across from the Boigu side. It proved to be the one sent by Beach; they had stopped at Mabaduane and left again before Kousa my messenger had arrived, so we shall take along his medical kit and pick him up there. The canoe to avoid the strong westerly storms that come in the afternoons has gone up to Giga but will come in again this evening. We shall leave in the morning.