On 26th June, 1689, an English youth, named Henry Kelsey, and an Indian boy set out northwards on a month-long journey from a newly-founded trading post at the mouth of the Churchill River in Hudson Bay. Their object was to find Indians who might bring furs to the new post, but they hiked an estimated 200 miles out and back over the Barrens without meeting a single human being. If, however, their trip was commercially a fruitless, as well as an arduous enterprise, they still made one discovery of some scientific interest. On Sunday, 9th July, Kelsey recorded in his diary: “in ye Evening spyed two Buffillo left our things & pursued ym Kill'd one they are ill shapen beast their Body being bigger than an ox leg & foot like ye same but not half so long a [long] neck & head a hog their Horns not growing like other Beast but joyn together upon their forehead & so come down ye side of their head & turn up till ye points be Even wth ye Buts their Hair is near a foot long” (Doughty and Martin, 1929, pp. 27–8).

The Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey has established and maintained a number of antarctic bases since 1945. They are located on the Graham Land peninsula, in the South Shetland and South Orkney Islands, and at South Georgia; over the years a great deal of general information about the various species of seals has accumulated. I have spent a total of thirty-six months in the Dependencies between 1948 and 1951 and some weeks in the Falkland Islands, occupied with a special study of the elephant seal, although opportunities were taken for work on other species. As a result we now have a fairly comprehensive picture of the status of the various pinniped species in this sector of the southern oceans.

As a result of the broken nature of much of Nyasaland and the diversity of its climate there is a correspondingly wide range of vegetation offering very varied habitats to wild life. From an alpine zone, containing giant lobelias on the Nyika Plateau and mountain grasslands with residual patches of broadleaved evergreen forest, occurring over all the plateaux above about 6,000 feet, the country drops into the Brachystegia woodland. This in its many forms covers most of the main watersheds of the country. The alluvial soils lying along the larger rivers on the plain of Lake Nyasa and down the Shire valley are characterized by mixtures of Acacia and Combretum species growing in grass which is long and intensely thick. Copaifera mopane woodland covers parts of the floor of the Shire valley, whilst on the poor sandy soils of the Lower Shire there are a number of patches of deciduous forests and thickets, some of which are virtually impenetrable except along paths made by the larger game animals. The only approach to open plains is found in the region of Lake Chilwa.

Our expedition to the Tana was a prelude to five months spent collecting birds and other small vertebrates of various kinds in Kenya and Uganda.

In the autumn of 1952 two wounded birds were flown to the Aransas Wildlife Refuge in Texas, U.S.A. Both were whooping cranes (Grus americana) and were suffering from shotgun wounds. Both subsequently died despite the best efforts of ornithologists.

In his article “Wild Life in Southern Ethiopia” (Oryx, vol. 1, No. 6, page 288), Captain D. S. Sorrell says that he believes that the dibatag (Ammodorcas clarkei) has never been recorded outside the Mudugh province of Somalia, and that it is in danger of soon becoming extinct. These remarks create a wrong impression, and I write to give some additional information on the distribution of this interesting antelope.

The present condition of those parts of the Islands affected by the explosion, particularly of those parts with evidence of radioactive contamination, is still a secret even if fully known. Furthermore, it will be many years before the final effects of delayed radiation can be assessed; so any speculations that can be made about the survival of animal species must be very tentative ones.