Among the domestic pets kept in the towns of England, the cat probably tops the list so far as numbers go. But unlike other domesticated animals its association with man has been relatively short and, in spite of the mouse-catching propensities of some breeds, domestication was in this case only in part guided by economic considerations.

Major Barker spent nearly twenty years of his life in the Game Preservation Department of the Sudan. During the last fifteen years he worked single-handed with only a clerk to help him. The Sudan is nearly a million square miles in area, and in Major Barker's days the methods of communication were road, rail, and river only. Yet he managed during his service to create two national parks and ten game reserves, to bring the game laws up to date in such a form that they could be easily enforced, and to leave game preservation throughout most of the country in an excellent state.

I reached Nairobi on 29th December, 1950, and left on 4th May, 1951, after covering about 4,000 miles. With the exception of a visit to Dar-es-Salaam the whole of my time was spent in Kenya.

The Walrus is confined to the northern circumpolar regions, its range northward apparently extending to the limit of perpetual ice. Now rare in Iceland, Odobenus rosmarus is stated to be still not unfamiliar in Hudson Bay, Davis Strait, and Baffin Bay north to Ellesmere Land, the coasts of Greenland, Spitsbergen, Novaia Zemlia, and the western part of the north coast of Siberia; in all of which regions, however, persecution has greatly diminished its numbers. The species does not extend along the far eastern part of the north Siberian coast, and Walrus are not met with again until the north-eastern extremity of Siberia is reached. Here the Pacific Walrus, which differs somewhat from that of the Atlantic side and is regarded as a distinct species, Odobenus obesus, is reported from Cape Chelagskai, in longitude 170° E., along the Siberian coast as far as northern Kamschatka south to latitude 60°, also on some of the islands in the Bering Sea, and on the opposite coast of Alaska south to about latitude 55° and eastward to Point Barrow. Here again a long gap along the Arctic coast of North America, from Point Barrow in longitude 158° W. to the western shore of Hudson Bay in longitude 97° W., separates the Pacific from the Atlantic Walrus.

The Uganda Government has long been subject to much adverse criticism for its apparent reluctance to fulfil its share of the obligations towards wild life which were agreed upon by Great Britain in 1933, at the international conference held in London for the better protection of the African fauna. The world however was then in the throes of a disastrous financial depression, from which recovery was slow, and it was scarcely the time for the small Uganda Protectorate, with its limited resources, to embark on a costly scheme for creating national parks. Moreover, ever since the proclamation of the Protectorate in 1894 Uganda has suffered more severely from rinderpest, that terrible scourge of cattle, than any other British territory in Africa. The direct loss in livestock has been appalling, but the indirect loss, which can be assessed as the measure of the preventive effort on the part of the Veterinary Department, has been positively staggering. Rinderpest has for long been endemic in the regions of Ethiopia to the north-east and never a year has passed without the dread disease appearing on Uganda's northern and eastern frontiers. The wild ungulates introduced, harboured and transmitted the disease—the cattle could be controlled, not so the wild animals except possibly by the repugnant method of destruction. Outside the limits of Uganda few have realized the grim and costly struggle which continued relentlessly year by year, and still fewer have ever appreciated that little Uganda with its gallant band of veterinary workers has again and again staved off disaster from reaching the territories lying to the south and south-west. Rinderpest was no respecter of game reserves in which the disease-stricken ungulates suffered as heavily as anywhere else and therefore there were economic factors of considerable gravity involved in the question of alienation of relatively large areas as national parks. It seemed preferable and wiser to endeavour to free Uganda from the ravages of rinderpest, before setting aside as national parks areas which could function as reservoirs of the disease.

It will come as a surprise to some readers that monkeys were contemporaries of prehistoric man in Europe north of the Alps. Finds are few, yet sufficient to make this statement and also to say that they belonged to the genus Macaca, of which the modern “Gibraltar Ape” is a member.

Every lover of nature regrets that man has exterminated so many kinds of animals or that these have lost their means of living and become extinct through changes brought about on the earth's surface to meet Man's increasing needs.

The Serengeti National Park.—The Park boundaries have at last been agreed. For some time it seemed that the whole park was in jeopardy except the Ngorongoro Craters and the adjacent highlands; all the rest it was suggested should be called a “National Reserve” in which settlement by man would be allowed. This proposal, made to include in the Park only those areas to which no one whatever would take exception, spelt its doom. Another proposal, made in order to give the Wasakuma tribe the maximum possible area for expansion in the southwest, was for the boundary of the Park to run from Victoria Nyanza along some sixty miles of the Mbalageti River, and then turn southwards. This would have been equally fatal as it is just this stretch of the river which is essential to the animals in the plains, when they migrate westwards in the dry season.

Ceylon, for its size, has been richly endowed with a wealth of indigenous fauna; many species that have been scientifically separated from their close relatives on the Indian continent are peculiar to the island.

For any one interested in birds and beasts, an expedition to the Murchison Falls in Uganda is a truly thrilling experience. On either side of the Victoria Nile, from. Lake Albert to the Falls, is the Bunyoro and Gulu game reserve where, from a boat going up and down the river, one can see an amazing number and variety of African fauna. It is a perfect example of the intense pleasure to be had from watching wild animals in a place where they can live undisturbed by man.

By a Proclamation dated 20th April, 1950, the Governor of Northern Rhodesia has established a National Park, to be known as the Kafue National Park.

This new park covers some 8,650 square miles roughly in the central Kafue basin, between latitudes 14° and 16° 40′ S. It contains a wide range of country from the comparatively dry sandy lands of the south to the big rivers, swamps, and heavy timber of the northern section. The magnificent Kafue River dominates the whole central portion, adding scenic beauty to the attraction of wild life.

Two years have passed since Colonel J. A. B. Sandenbergh, the Warden of the Kruger National Park, launched a public appeal to provide water for the wild life of the park. Subscriptions were invited for two purposes: the first to provide boreholes so that in the dry season animals could find water within reach of their grazing, the second to form a general fund to build dams to retard the run-off of rain water.

The serious situation of the Red Deer in Scotland is at last becoming known to the public and, with legislation for the protection of the deer now being drafted, it is an opportune moment to consider what aspects such legislation should cover.