Welsh Journals

to her small chick, can be enjoyed without morbid, not to say ill- informed speculation on the effects which peregrines may have on the populations of other birds. Elsewhere the peregrine has found its own niche in the avian community, and there is no need to believe that it will not do so in Gower. It is a very special bird, and true bird-lovers will welcome its return. A Neolithic polished axe from Whiteford National Nature Reserve by Melvyn Davies The axe was discovered on 13th January 1989 at SS4583 9378 at the south-eastern edge of the reserve where a steep rubble slope meets the salt-marsh of the Burry Estuary. It was situated 1.5m above the drift- wood line indicating the high-water mark of the previous autumn's spring tides, in a disturbed context of a head deposit comprising sub- angular carboniferous limestone with small proportions of old red sand- stone, and yellow-brown sandstones from the coal measures. The axe was detected because the butt end, which was protruding from the deposit, was obviously of a different rock type from the surrounding rubble. A brief search in this rubble has failed to reveal rocks other than those originating from the immediate neighbourhood of the Burry Estuary. The steep rubble slope becomes grass-covered and then wooded 0.5m above the axe site, and the exposure for 10m or more to east and west has been disturbed by gravel extraction. Without this extraction it is unlikely that the axe would have surfaced. The rubble slope extending upwards gives way to a steep rock face of limestone, in places much quarried in the past, which continues to the top of the cliff at an altitude varying from 60 to 79m. The woodland may well be of considerable age as the steep rubble