The camp has been very profitable for plants and should continue so for several more days. The plan is to collect here for seven full days, then return to Lockerbie. The area of the sand dune is greatly exaggerated on the military map. It is probably too limited to carry distinctive mammals, although a ground inhabiting Melomys, different from any taken elsewhere, has been caught in a trap a few yards from cymp. This, and a Uromys, were taken by Van from about 20 traps set out hurriedly the first night. Since then, the three trappers have caught but 3 specimens between them. The second and third nights yielded nothing at all from about 150 traps. This is hard to account for. Traps have been set in adjacent rain forest and savanna forest as well as the hedune area. Not even a wallaby has been shot. The mammal collection is an amazing one nevertheless. Eleven specimens in four days and nights, and they represent 10 species: 2 Melomys, 1 Uromys, 1 Dactylopspsila, 1 Petaurus, 1 Rattus, 2 bats netted by Van at a rock fissure on the point, 1 Acrobates, and 1 Isoodon. The Acrobates is a particularly good thing. It extends the known range of the genus a great jump to the north - from the Atherton Tableland. The taking of the Acrobates is quite a story. Van and George, out night hunting, found a flowering bloodwood tree from which they shot the Dactylopsila and Petaurus. There were other Petauwns in the tree, and in trying to get them Van saw the quick movement of something much smaller - something with a pale belly, and fired a shot at it. Thought he da kill, but could find nothing by lamplight in the grass and bushes under the tree. Next morning he was back at the tree bright and early. All he found was a small python, coiled in thick cover, which he killed, brought to camp and coiled in lifelike position on Geoff's table, for a joke. It was in the belly of the snake that the Acrobates was later found, and with it a young bandicoot. Day and night since we have been here a strong southeaster has blown with no let-up. It lashes the low trees of the dune scrubs so that I unning to tell whether or not they hold flowers or fruits for me, and on the open grasslands and in the shrubberies the movement is just as bad. For a day or two it blew sand into our food and sifted into tents and beds. Now the surface sand is wet with rain. A shower or two fell the afternoon we set up camp. Dry season showers, frog showers or gammon showers. There has been no pretense about the showers for the past two days. In that time we have not seen the sun. The showers come closer together, and progressively heavier. We all got more or less wet today on field work. Wet cloting, washed and unwashed, hangs wherever there is free space. Last night was too wet for jacking. George and Van came in a few minutes ago, Wet. They had been back to the Acrobates tree. Van's headlight went suddenly wrong and his flashlamp soon burned dim. George could not see through his rain-wet glasses, so they called it a night. Tuesday May 11: Collected inland about a mile to near Lake Bronto - sandy savanna - forest with big bloodwood and teatrees, small patches of black teatree scrub. Topography and soil suggest an ancient sand dune area, in which Lake Bronto occupies a basin without surface outlet. An interesting plant was a species of Santalum I have not seen before. Growing socially in the sandy savanna-forest. Small, rough barked atree about 15-18 ft. high. Wood with high oil content but aromatic only when dry. My boy Willie informed me that before the war this same species was cut for export, and that it is common on the Jardine River. A