2 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 
L. J. Rintoul, who during the stress of war years have not 
only borne the greater part of the editing of the magazine, 
but have also shouldered a large share of the financial 
burdens due to the difficulties of the times. 
* % % x 
His colleagues desire to congratulate Dr A. Landsborough 
Thomson, O.B.E., on his appointment to an Assistant- 
Secretaryship in the Medical Research Council. His trans- 
ference to London and to new duties necessitate his 
withdrawal from the number of our Assistant-Editors, and 
in a letter resigning his position he draws attention to 
the fact that the band of young ornithologists whom he 
represented on the Scottish Naturalist has been broken up 
by the war, in which some of its chief members—S. E. Brock, 
L. N. G. Ramsay, A. G. Davidson, and J. C. Adam—lost their 
lives. 
* ca se * 
There are indications that British ornithology is entering 
a new phase, and two communications published in this 
number help to forward a movement which, through an 
intensive investigation of bird associations and bird distri- 
bution in different types of regions, ought to bring a new 
stimulus to the study of Scottish bird life. The late Capt. 
S. E. Brock’s paper on “ Bird Associations ” suggests a pre-. 
liminary territorial grouping of our bird life, and Dr W. E. 
Collinge appeals for a definite enumeration of each species of 
British bird. Not every reader will agree that a bird census in 
Britain, where there is extraordinary patchiness and diversity 
of surface, can be so accurately compassed as in the United 
States with its enormous areas of uniform conditions. 
But even in Britain a census is possible, as we hope to 
demonstrate by publishing in an early number a detailed 
enumeration of birds breeding in the county of Linlithgow. 
* Lo * * 
It is not to be hoped that anything approaching a 
complete census of Scottish bird life can be accomplished 
in the twinkling of an eye, but a beginning might be made; 
and an easy beginning is suggested by those species which 
form visible colonies during the nesting season, such as 
