Meat is short in southern Nigeria. Wild animal meat is popular, but the wildlife is seriously depleted. To help supply the demand for meat and also ease the pressure on the wildlife, a quick-breeding species, the giant or pouched rat, is being domesticated. The author describes some of the widely held taboos about this meat, which nevertheless is in considerable demand.

Depopulation of the Scottish Highlands in the seventeenth century was followed by intense exploitation and often misuse of the land, with serious overgrazing, burning and wildlife destruction. Today the main land uses are hill sheep farming, crofting, sport, and, more recently, commercial timber growing, nature conservation, hydroelectric schemes and tourism. The author, who is on the staff of the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources in Edinburgh University, examines the effect of these activities on four main wildlife species – golden eagle, red deer, red grouse and red fox – and describes some of the mistaken management practices which damage the wildlife, often without producing the desired results.

Chance took us within the short space of three months to two rather different small countries, Rwanda in December 1973 and Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in January and February 1974, each for about a fortnight. Each country naturally has its wildlife conservation problems, and the differences between these cover such a large part of the spectrum of such problems that it seemed worth while comparing them.

The author spent three years (1969–1972) in Niger's National Park W (sq called because of its shape), working for the Government as a wildlife biologist. This article contains notes on the three animals that have become extinct in Niger in the last few decades and also on those that are rapidly disappearing today.

Both agoutis and the babassu palm thrive in secondary growth where primary rain forest has been removed, as is happening widely in South America, notably in Brazil. The agouti is also a prolific and easily farmed animal that provides good meat. The author suggests that fanning of this native mammal would be much more likely than beef to succeed among the settlers coming in along Brazil's newly bulldozed roads.

Ian Strange asks as to correct a wrong figure in his article Wildlife in the Falklands in the January 1972 issue. On page 253, in the first paragraph below the heading ‘Penguin Harvest’, line 5 should read: ‘payment of five shillings per 1000 eggs…’ (not per 100).

The late Mary Gough was an accurate and dedicated observer of wildlife, and its habitats. In the last ten years she spent long periods in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia, and was part author, with R. M. Lawton, of a paper on elephant grazing and browsing in the Luangwa in Oryx, May 1970. She was killed in the field in 1971. These notes have been compiled from her detailed diaries by Ray Lawton and her sister, Evelyn Millward, as a memorial to her work. Miss Millward also paid for Mrs Gough's photographs to be reproduced in colour. The introduction and the discussion are by Dr Lawton and Miss Millward.

More than 95 per cent of Hawaii's original fauna and flora occurs nowhere else in the world. In 1965 the compiler of the Birds Red Data Book, Jack Vincent, listed 25 of Hawaii's original 69 bird species as extinct. With the discovery of a new not yet named Honeycreeper (Drepanidiae) on Maui in 1973, by a National Science Foundation sponsored expedition and the re-discovery of the Maui nukupuu Hemignathus lucidus effinus in 1967, the count changed to 70 known species with 24 extinct. Of Hawaii's remaining 46 endemic birds 27 are threatened with extinction.

In Britain there are no restrictions on collecting, importing, buying or selling of butterflies, however rare or threatened, and a worldwide trade has developed that is still growing. One Kent dealer lists bird-wings at £98 a pair. The author urges the need for their protection. The situation underlines the urgency for the comprehensive wildlife protection bill, with schedules listing rare and endangered species of animals, insects and plants, referred to on page 403.

The author went to Niger in August–September 1972 to report and advise on the wildlife situation. This was as a result of a report by two residents, Mr and Mrs Barry Humphrey, describing the serious and continuing decline in Niger's wildlife, especially among the larger desert mammals, and the government's inability to raise the necessary money and manpower to protect it In particular, poaching in the W National Park in the south, and hunting mainly by Europeans in the Aïr Mountains in the north, where a large French mining company has concessions, are seriously depleting wildlife populations, notably addax and scimitar-horned oryx, both vulnerable species in the Red Data Book, and both desert-living species that can survive in the drought-ridden areas where cattle are dying and people starving. This article covers the gist of his report and recommendations.

In Oryx September 1971, (pp 103–107), we described the rediscovery in Assam of two animals that had been feared extinct—the pygmy hog Sus sylvanius and the hispid hare Caprolagus hispidus. Guy Mountfort, who recently returned from a visit to India, Nepal and Sikkim on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund, reports encouraging news of these two Red Book species.

The dodo which once inhabited Mauritius has become the very symbol of extinction by man. Today, nearly 300 years after the last dodo was killed, a unique endemic fauna still survives on the island, but it is now seriously threatened; one species, the Mauritius kestrel, is believed to be down to six in the wild. The author, who has been studying Mauritian conservation problems for the past two years, describes the situation, what has been done to conserve the wildlife, and what is planned.

The Sengwa Research Area in north-west Rhodesia consists of 145 square miles of uninhabited woodland and flood-plain, virtually undisturbed by man and now set aside solely for wildlife research. The author describes the government Research Station and the work going on there, particularly on warthogs, in which he took part in 1972–73.

In 1971 John MacKinnon spent seven months in Sumatra studying orang-utans in the wild. This report compares his findings with those of his earlier and much longer study in Sabah, the report of which was published in Oryx September 1971, and also comments on some other mammals in his study area, including the Sumatran rhino.

In this survey of the evidence for the yeti's existence and likely identity, the authors point out that the misleadingly named ‘abominable snowman’ is not a creature of the snows at all, but should be looked for in the dense Himalayan forests, which could support it. At present the authors are engaged in studying one such forest area, the Arun Valley between Everest and Kanchenjunga, on behalf of the Thailand Association for the Conservation of Wildlife. In January this year they reported having had ‘three incidents involving yeti so far, but only one yielded solid evidence’. On December 18 Cronin's and Emery's tent on a ridge in the upper Arun ‘was visited by an animal which left tracks that are not referable to any known animal’—see the photograph by Jeflrey McNeely on the next page.