352 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



tion. Mr. James Burton has written a chapter on " Pond Life." 

 As an Appendix, is given "A Select List of Books," which is 

 really a very judicious compilation, and there are some very 

 attractive illustrations. 



This book is a very excellent introduction to the natural 

 history of Hampstead Heath, a locality better known as a 

 holiday resort by the public, and for many reminiscences by 

 literary men, than as a classic ground by naturalists. May this 

 volume create a new interest, and its readers may possibly be 

 able by intelligent exertion to add to the lists of plants and 

 animals — especially the less developed animals — which its pages 

 contain. 



EDITOEIAL GLEANINGS. 



The following is an extract from the recently published report of 

 the Warden of the Transvaal Game Eeserves, Major Stevenson- 

 Hamilton : — 



" But for Government action there would now have been nothing 

 left in all the low country, especially in view of the introduction and 

 general use of repeating weapons, and the facilities of travel now 

 available. Elands have been absolutely exterminated ; elephants 

 had been all killed or driven out of the country ; the white and nearly 

 all the black rhinoceros had vanished ; the buffalo had disappeared 

 before the rinderpest came from everywhere excepting the Sabi Bush 

 and a small patch near the Olifants Eiver ; roan antelope were on 

 the very verge of extinction ; the days of the giraffe were numbered ; 

 the hippos, in spite of recruiting from Portuguese territory, were 

 rapidly disappearing. The last survivors of the once magnificent 

 Transvaal fauna had in fact been rounded up into one little strip 

 near the foot of the Lebombo Hills, the hunters were closing in on 

 them from all sides, and the last act in the drama was about to 

 commence. Small-bore rifles and swarms of hunters would quickly 

 have accounted for the last representatives of the last species 

 remaining. Before the Eeserves were inaugurated, the animals had 

 to face not only the biltong and other hunting by white men all the 

 winter, but the almost equally destructive agency of hordes of 



