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dents — none of whom has heard from me now for nearly two months — 

 in order that you can be posted on our progress. 



"This hist trip has not been up to our expectations in many ways, and 

 speaking for the mammal department I am greatly disajjpointed in it. 

 ^^'e left Portovelo October 24 and made Loja without mishap or delay 

 on the 2Gth, and then our difficulties began. Fairly free from delays 

 and annoyances on all our pther trips we began to make up for what we 

 had missed. Animals were very hard to get and we lost a week in Loja 

 getting away because the people are afraid to hire out their mules for the 

 Oriente. Cherrie was under the weather a day or two, nothing serious, 

 on top of it all. We were so low on ammunition that Cherrie collected 

 only a few birds about Loja, reserving his stock for the Oriente. Unally 

 we crossed the divide and went two days east to a place called Sabanilla, 

 about 2,500 feet above Zamora (pueblo). The trail was bad and we 

 stopped to work here until it should dry up before going farther. We had 

 almost a week solid of rain during which little could be done and then a 

 week of good weather which demonstrated to us that Sabanilla was a 

 very poor station. Calling a trap set for a night as one trap night, I had 

 upwards of 900 trap nights, and caught not one rodent, a murine opossum 

 being the .'^ole bag for all this tra])ping. We were disgusted and wanted 

 to move but one of our arrieros failed us and we were stuck there for a 

 week longer than we wished. Birds were far more common than mam- 

 mals of course but Cherrie wanted to move also. 



"Eventually we got down to Zamora and stayed there two weeks, 

 arriving just in time for a continuous series of rains the entire tw^o 

 weeks. This put a crimp in any moves down the river and I had to 

 give that part of the plan up although most of my interests were there. 

 When we came out the trail was fierce, mud every step the first two days 

 and nothing to brag of the third. I had walked every foot of the way 

 going in because we could not get mules enough, packing bed, etc., on 

 my saddle mule, while coming out we walked much of the way because 

 of the condition of the trail. You bet we were glad to see Loja again! 

 Our one piece of luck in the Oriente was the fact that the rains stopped 

 on the day we started and we came all three days dry. We were lucky 

 in securing animals for the return to Portovelo, the next day after we 

 made Loja, so we lost no time getting back here. Our last camp at 

 Zamora was not so })ad and with good weather we could have piled up a 

 pretty fair collection. As it was Cherrie got a lot of birds and I managed 



