Welsh Journals

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MAMMALS Stoat. Now spreading into Pembrokeshire. Seen as far west as Martinshaven, Marloes. July 7th, 1956 (R. M. LOCKLEY). Fox. Has increased considerably in south-west Pembroke- shire since rabbit trapping ceased with the arrival of myxomatosis in 1954. Seen frequently along the cliffs near Marloes, and in the W.D. Tank Range, Castlemartin, in the summer of 1956 (R.M.L.). Grey Squirrel. One seen in a large oak tree opposite the Gwydyr Hotel at Bettws-y-Coed Caerns. Oct., 1954 (Miss CLARKSWORTH, per Brig. Howsom). SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE SCUDDER, G. G. E. (1956). A contribution to a Survey of the Distribution of the Hemiptera-Heteroptera of Wales. Ent. mon. Mag. 92 54-64. This paper adds considerably to the previously recorded distribution of species of plant bugs in Wales and includes six not previously reported from the principality (P.M.M.). BOOK REVIEWS BIRDS OF THE WELSH COAST. T. G. WALKER. Cardiff. Uni- versity of Wales Press. 1956. 1os. 6d. Mainly concerned with the breeding sea and shore birds of Anglesey, but including also accounts of gannet, Manx shearwater and storm petrel, this book should fulfil excellently the dual part its author intends for it to help children towards the serious study of birds and to enable holiday-makers to identify some of the common birds of the Welsh coast. The text is simple and highly factual, the photographs of good quality and well chosen to aid identification of the birds. As a matter of individual taste one might quibble at occasional references to certain birds as if they were delinquent human beings. Thus the puffin is possibly of an idle nature and the herring gull looks cold and cruel hardly the sort of attitude to natural history to start the young off with. Nor do gannets tear fish into convenient pieces, as he suggests and they certainly are able to fly over dry land, which he suggests they cannot do But only rarely can the author's facts be questioned, as for instance when he says that it is computed that most of the [black-headed] gulleries in Wales are now inhabitated by two or three thousand pairs of birds." One wonders who did the com- puting, for the truth is that most black-headed gulleries in Wales are nothing like that size. The book concludes with a list of some