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.

Cuba is making a big effort to protect endangered vertebrate species. By Resolution No. 21–79, the Government has forbidden all hunting throughout the year in certain areas that are important for wildlife; outside these areas hunting of the commonest species is permitted from July to February. Time will show whether the law can be enforced.

Game Scouts.—It is satisfactory to read that game scouts have been put on the same salary and terms of service as game guards. This has been done in order to enable the Department to enlist and keep good men in spite of the many temptations of their work. The work of game scouts, and there are only 20 of them for the whole Protectorate, is to enforce the preservation laws, whereas game guards are employed chiefly in game control.

In recent years several African national parks have been faced with the ‘hippo problem’ — a large population of hippos accused of causing serious erosion and habitat destruction. Should they be culled? Uganda decided yes, in the Rwenzori National Park (formerly Queen Elizabeth); but the Zaire (formerly Belgian Congo) parks have always been regarded as strict nature reserves and no killing has been allowed. However, at a joint meeting of the Survival Service and the National Parks Commissions, at Kinshasa, last September, the question was raised in regard to the Virunga (formerly Albert) National Park. The commissions were asked to advise the Parks Administration on the possible relationship between the hippopotamus population and the erosion of land adjacent to the Semliki, Rutshuru and Rwindi rivers. It had been suggested that a hippopotamus population explosion in recent years was responsible for overgrazing and damage to the river banks, increasing erosion to such a degree that the whole river valley was threatened with denudation and destruction. Should the hippopotamus population be culled? Dr Paul Leyhausen was among the delegates who were able to visit the Virunga park in the course of the IUCN meetings, and in this note records his observations and conclusions on the problem and incidentally gives some idea of the complications of the situation.

Inevitably, wildlife suffered during the military conflict in the Falkland Islands in 1982. But after the sounds of battle died away and there was time to assess the extent of the damage to wildlife it was recognised that it could have been much worse. Ian Strange, an Islands' resident, who was present throughout the occupation and conflict, here records not only the effects of the war but also of the military presence that has been maintained since it ended. As a naturalist/ conservationist he views with some disquiet the implications of the development aid that is pouring into the Islands and makes a plea that the Falklands be made an international reserve.

The Great Indian One-horned Rhinoceros, probably India's rarest and most interesting animal, occupies a unique position in the world to-day. Listed by the survival service of the International Office for the Protection of Nature as one of the vanishing species which requires all possible steps to be taken for its protection, it has the eyes of scientists, naturalists and others in all parts of the world focussed on it and its habitat.