On 17th July, 1951, the Society had the great pleasure of hearing a talk by Mr. F. W. Champion upon the relation, in tropical forests, between scientific forestry and wild life preservation. Mr. Champion during his twenty-five years as a forest officer in India, became famous for his knowledge of the jungle animals. He was a pioneer of wild life photography in India and his books The Jungle in Sunlight and Shadow and With Camera in Tiger Land will be well known to members of our Society. After leaving India in 1947 Mr. Champion took up a post in the forest service of Tanganyika Territory, where he is still serving.

Open plains, scorching and shadeless during the summer, windswept and freezing during the winter night, present a hard environment indeed. The surprising fact is that any form of wild life has been able to exist in such utterly waterless places. Yet up to the beginning of the present century an interesting assemblage of animals existed in the Arabian desert. Even when modern rifles came into general use the species held their own in the vast spaces to a very satisfactory extent. But the last decade has witnessed the advent of a shocking predator, namely the “Mighty Jeep”. It cannot be long now before motorized hunting parties will sweep Arabia's fauna into uttermost corners, where a subsequent drought will whiten its bones.

In spite of the considerable economic development of the last twenty-five years, and hence the occupation and “miseen-valeur” of large formerly unexplored areas and the intensification of motor car traffic in consequence of the opening of new roads, Angola is still a country with plenty of game. Game abounds especially in the southern part with its extended savannas. Certain areas, still little explored and thus still undisturbed along the Rivers Cunene and Cubango (Okavango), for instance, are known as exceptionally rich in game.

The Game Department came into being on the 1st April, 1950. Throughout the year work was confined to the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, North American conservationists embarked on an intensive campaign to prevent the Trumpeter Swan (Cygnus buccinator) from following the Passenger Pigeon into extinction.

Apart from sixty-one Forest Nature Reserves, with a total area of 12,906·7 acres, the following national parks and nature reserves exist in the Union of South Africa:—

The area covered by these thirty-eight national parks and reserves is approximately 8¼ million acres, or 13,000 square miles. As a nation, therefore, the South Africans have no reason to be ashamed of the provision that has been made by means of national parks and reserves for the country's fauna and flora.

Wild Life Protection.—The first wild life protection law in Malaya was passed in 1884 when Strait Settlements Ordinance No. III gave protection to wild birds; nothing further was done until 1896 when Pahang extended certain protection to Elephant, Seladang, and Rhinoceros. Other States followed with various measures but conservation was not put on a practical footing until 1921 when the Federated Malay States Wild Animals and Birds Protection Enactment was introduced. From then on a Game Department was in being, though much of the work was performed by honorary game wardens; among them the late Mr. Theodore Hubback.

The object of these notes is to give a record of the wild life living in the Lower Juba area of Somalia, and to assist visitors to Jubaland in finding the haunts of the various animals described. The writers do not presume to lay down the methods of identifying these animals because more knowledgeable authors have already done this elsewhere.

The Lower Juba is that area which was the Administrative District of Kismayu under the recent British occupation. It extends from Ghesgud to Dujuma on the left bank of the Juba River, and contains all the land between the right bank of the river and the Kenya border from Ras Ciamboni to Dif, lying south of a line Dif-Dujuma (see map).

Throughout the report the Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) is referred to as the Square-lipped Rhinoceros and not as the White Rhinoceros. Both terms have been in common use for many years; the former is the more descriptive and it is hoped that the latter, which is a complete misnomer, may fall into disuse.

The original proposal for a National Park in Malaya was put forward by the late Theodore Hubback in 1927. Subsequent correspondence in which the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire was interested, paved the way for concrete suggestions contained in the Report of the Wild Life Commission of Malaya, published in 1932.

M. van der Goes van Naters, Secretary of the Netherlands Provisional Nature Conservancy, spoke of the need for the Union to act as arbitrator in all international matters. Giving examples under four headings for the need for action, he said: “… a system must be established based on the following points:—

(a) Among the reports of the technical conference there are three concerned with frontier and international parks and in addition a résumé written by the Secretary-General.

History records the Pinnated Grouse, or prairie chicken (Tympanchus cupido). as known to the early American settlers who referred to the bird as the Minnesota Grouse. The demand for land in the United States quickly extirpated the bird from most of its former range as early as 1870. It appeared to enter Saskatchewan from the south-east in about 1900. No doubt the wealth of unsettled Canadian prairies was responsible for the extension of its range in Saskatchewan—south of highway No. 5 and east of the elbow of the South Saskatchewan River.

Bunyoro and Gulu.—On the whole this reserve continues to be well stocked particularly in the vicinity of the River Nile. That parts of it are still poached is unquestionable, but it is a moot point whether a conspicuous, local shortage of kob and hartebeest is due to poaching or to the depredations of lions. Baboons in the Murchison Falls Nile region have shown an astonishing increase in recent years which is almost certainly attributable to the widespread harrying to which the skin-valuable leopard has been subjected. Hippopotamus poaching in the Nile has by no means ceased, and the remote control which is only possible cannot be really effective. Authentic reports have been received of several buffaloes having been killed by lions.

For very many years the areas west of the railway line comprising Kibwezi, Makindu, Kiboko and Simba have been the mecca for numbers of the native poaching fraternity. A change exists. Now that game preservation has been strictly enforced, these skilled Wakamba hunters and experts in the use of bow and poisoned arrow have taken badly to existing conditions. Game animals ranging from elephant to dikdik in the past went through bad times in a grim endeavour to survive. Their drinking places during periods of excessive drought had their quota of poachers' hides, either hollowed out in mother earth or built on adjacent trees. Twang of bowstring had brought about in the minds of wild creatures a note inherited, conveying fear and alarm. Nothing on four legs was spared—females and young—easy food.

To those unaware of the position in the Gold Coast the first reaction to the above report is probably one of satisfaction that a game department has at last been established and that work has started, but a careful examination of the report raises a number of doubts as to the value of the work that has been done. It is perhaps worth while commenting on the Report in the light of personal knowledge, and after detailed discussion with other officers interested in game, who know the areas concerned.

The Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire is taking stock of the faunal conditions of Africa in the light of recent developments, with special reference to investigations that have taken place and are in progress, of the incidence of flyborne diseases and of methods of control of such diseases by direct attack on the fly through the use of insecticides and otherwise, and by treatment of cattle with prophylactics such as antryeide. We have been encouraged to hope that Governments in British territories, including Southern Rhodesia, where controlled killing had been undertaken with a view to eradicating tsetse fly were now disposed to suspend this method of attack for a period pending examination of the results of experiments in progress.

If you have never seen the African animals except in zoos, and have always longed to see them wild, the Nairobi National Park is a sort of paradise. At first it is hard to believe that you are not in the middle of a wonderful dream, though as with many such dreams, there is grimness lurking in the background in the form of Vultures, Hyænas, and, of course, Lions.

Though the Park is quite small, only about 40 square miles, the number and variety of animals is amazing, especially considering that during the war it was an army training ground, so hardly a peaceful place for them. But now, driving slowly along, you find hundreds of beautiful and fantastic beasts strolling unconcernedly around you, for they have found that they are safe from men in cars, if not from Lions.

I could fill a book with stories about that dear fellow, the Indian elephant, had he not been immortalized by Rudyard Kipling's famous story of that little upstart “Toomai”. The Times has also written about him, and Mr. Craven Hill, F.Z.S., has told stories of his sense of fun.

Progress in the development of the Park is very satisfactory. The quantity and tameness of the animals in the southern section justifies the decision to open this section to the public, with limited facilities, for the 1953 Rhodes Centenary Exhibition. Numbers of all the local species of antelope, with buffalo and zebra, were seen without difficulty from July onwards till the rains broke. The game is definitely responding to the care taken for its preservation.

The Gir Forest in Kathiawar is the last home of the Asiatic lion. Up to the beginning of the last century the lion inhabited all suitable parts of north and central India, but the introduction of modern firearms and the spread of population led to its disappearance by 1884 from everywhere except Kathiawar. Even within Kathiawar the lions retired to the protection of the Gir Forest, except for irregular visits as far afield as the Barda Hills. This forest in southern Kathiawar in 1878 covered 1,200 square miles, but its area is now reduced by half. Much of it is thick forest of the mixed deciduous type, with teak predominating, but the undergrowth is fairly thin, allowing grazing of cattle and buffaloes throughout most of the area. In the eastern Gir there is grassland and scrubby bushes, including several kinds of acacia.