Dr Cott's report on the status of the Nile crocodile in Murchison Falls National Park, in Uganda, shows a most alarming situation, with poachers gaining the upper hand. At one place where crocodiles were once so numerous that at times it looked as if the whole beach were moving into the river there are now none at all. In the battle against the poachers it is urgent to equip the park rangers with two-way radio sets to replace the present system of signalling by fire (which also warns the poachers), and the FPS has agreed to provide these sets out of the FPS/WWF Revolving Fund (see page 319). Dr Cott's other recommendations include putting a stop to disturbance by tourist and other launches and the reduction of some predators.

Because the numbers of roan antelope have dwindled seriously, a study project has been started in the Kruger National Park. Sixteen animals were captured by drug immobilisation and then released in a special enclosure where they can be studied. The author, who is a member of the Board of Trustees, assesses the status of the roan where it is found in Africa and describes the project.

The report by Dr Zoltan Kaszab of a sighting of Przewalski wild horses in Mongolia, published in Oryx, December 1966, has brought criticism of the identification. However, an expedition in the summer of 1967 sighted a mare with a yearling foal and found tracks of others. In this article Mr Ivor Montagu discusses the criticism of the 1966 sighting and Dr Kaszab's reply, and lists other sightings accepted by the Mongolian authorities.

Breeding rare animals in captivity is only a second best but essential if they cannot be preserved in the wild, and in this zoos have an important part to play. Richard Fitter, hon. secretary of the Fauna Preservation Society, describes some of the most successful captive breeding programmes so far—Pére David's deer, European bison, Przewalski wild horse and Arabian oryx—and urges zoos to give serious attention now to the more difficult tasks of breeding primates and carnivores, of which several species, notably orang utans and the larger apes are endangered. He also suggests that zoos should anticipate the day when species now common become rare by establishing captive breeding programmes that would make them self-supporting in these animals.

In both North and South America rabies is carried by bats, especially the vampire bats in the warmer central countries. Every country in the two continents, with only three exceptions, and every state in the USA, with only two exceptions, has reported rabid bats. As rabies is fatal to both humans and domestic animals control measures are essential. The author, who was for many years in charge of vampire-bat control in Trinidad, where in the ten years up to 1935, 89 humans and thousands of cattle died of paralytic rabies, emphasises that bats are beneficial animals and that control must be aimed, not at indiscriminate destruction of bats, but to regulate the population levels, and that care must be taken not to involve other species.