For too long zoos have been regarded as places of entertainment where people go to laugh at the animals. But the modern zoo has important functions to fill and must take its place as a scientific and cultural institution beside the museum and the research station. The author, editor of the International Zoo Yearbook, suggests that zoos have three main functions: firstly, educational, where their opportunity is enormous — 150 million people a year go to see the half-million vertebrate animals in the 500 zoos and aquaria listed in the Yearbook; secondly as repositories of data about wild animals; thirdly, as breeding centres for endangered species. She believes that a united organised breeding programme, using large units and with each zoo specialising in certain animals, could save many endangered species.

The huge number of wild monkeys used for research purposes, more than half of them in the USA, has alarmed conservationists all over the world. The author of this article shows how wild stocks especially of rhesus monkeys have declined as a direct result, and suggests ways in which the wastage now going on could be avoided until research workers become sufficiently alarmed at the prospect of no more wild animals being obtainable to put money into breeding their own supplies. The author is drawing on more than ten years' experience of collecting zoo animals and research primates in Africa and south-east Asia and twenty odd years of zoo animal maintenance.

Rats and red deer are two of the major hazards that have reduced several species of New Zealand birds to the verge of extinction. The author describes the efforts being made to save these birds, the new threat to Coppermine Island, main breeding ground of the flesh-footed shearwater, where tuataras share the shearwaters’ burrows, and the more hopeful outlook for the takahe.

In this brief review of the status and conservation needs of the larger mammals of the Arabian peninsula, Dr Harrison, author of the standard work on the subject (volume 2 will be reviewed in the next ORYX) finds the situation not entirely depressing. Arabian oryx still probably number several hundred. The species that are in some danger include genet, lynx, leopard, cheetah, tahr, goat, red sheep, dorcas gazelle, Persian fallow deer and roe deer.

The history of wildlife conservation in Africa is one of dwindling animal populations and shrinking habitats, and the southern white or square-lipped rhinoceros Ceratotherium simum simum became one of the rarest large mammals in Africa. This paper, on which the author's address at San Diego was based, describes one of the most successful operations in wildlife conservation, the build-up n i numbers of the white rhino and the re-population of some of its former range, thanks largely to the use of immobilising drugs. Ian Player, who played a major part in the operations, is Chief Conservator of Zululand.

Although the Mongolian People's Republic, last refuge of the Przewalski wild horse, is one of the most thinly populated countries in the world, the wildlife decreased considerably in the 30's and 40's. There has been some improvement in recent years, and the Game Law now gives protection to nearly all mammals—the few exceptions include the wolf, understandably in a country with vast herds of domestic animals. Mr. Hibbert, who was British Chargé d'Affaires at Ulan Bator from 1964 to 1966, and has since spent a year at Leeds University working on Mongolian materials, assesses the status of the major species of mammals, birds and fish, and describes the game laws.

A hunting club whose main task is wildlife conservation is Jordan’s unique contribution to the task of saving the world’s wildlife. A group of enthusiastic Jordanians, backed by the King and the Government, are making great strides in getting their message across to the people, enforcing the protection laws and at the same time building up the country’s wildlife stocks.

The Ceylon elephant is in serious danger, due largely to the spread of cultivation in the island bringing destruction of its habitat and interruption of the migration routes. As an essential preliminary to devising ways of protecting the elephants, the Smithsonian Institution and the World Wildlife Fund have sponsored a field survey. Dr Kurt is one of the team of zoologists who started work in April 1967, and for whom the FPS/WWF Revolving Fund last year supplied a much needed Land Rover.