Welsh Journals

REVIEWS The Birds of Cardiganshire, by GEOFFREY C. S. INGRAM, H. MORREY SALMON & W. M. CONDRY. The West Wales Naturalists' Trust, Haverfordwest, 1966, 88 pages. 7s. 6d. This is the seventh county avifauna in which Messrs Ingram & Salmon have been the principal co-authors, and it is fully up to the standard of the others which complete the record for the whole of the southern half of Wales. They rightly acknowledge-as so many of us in West Wales must-the great contribution of the field notes of the late Bertram Lloyd and Charles Oldham whose place, as regards more recent field records, is taken by the third co-author, William Condry, who was for several years the editor of Field Notes for the West Wales Trust (then Field Society), before the birth of Nature in Wales. There is a short but useful introduction covering the main physical features. Then the annotated list of 239 species recorded up to and including 1965 81 resident breeders, 25 summer visitors breeding, 32 regular visitors and passage-migrants, and 101 vagrants and occasionals. Welsh names of the birds are given under the English and scientific names. The total is not very large, but for the reviewer there are some choice breeding species such as kite, redstart, pied flycatcher, red-breasted merganser, dunlin, black grouse and merlin. Woodlark and peregrine falcon are alas no longer nesting but may one day return, we hope. The status of each species is clearly defined; and no bird-watch- er visiting this very unspoilt and little explored county should be without a copy of this guide. R.M.L. The Birds of Glamorgan, by A. HEATHCOTE, D. GRIFFIN & H. MORREY SALMON. Cardiff Naturalists' Society, c/o The National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, 1967. 30s. This book has been produced by the Cardiff Naturalists' Society as part of its centenary celebrations. It is an excellent and valuable addition to the county avifauna of Wales, bringing much credit to the editors. It replaces the previous Birds of Glamorgan published in 1936. The book has two sections, the first being an informative introduction where recent changes in the breeding birds are set against the changes in land use and the advance of man. The coming of motor cars and caravans to previously remote beach and dune areas is one of several damaging changes from the birds' point of view-since 1936-resulting in gradual reduction of Oystercatchers, Redshank and Shelduck as breeding birds, and the total loss of the Little Tern. The second part of the book is the systematic list covering the 269 species acceptably identified, and another 17 included within