39 
United Arab Emirates 
Dubai Natural History Group, P.O. Box 9292, Dubai, United Arab 
Emirates . 
Dubai Wildlife Research Centre, P.O. Box 11626, Dubai, United Arab 
Emirates . 
(*) Emirates Natural History Group (Abu Dhabi), 
Contact Ted Garside ( Chairman) ( tel . 770302) or Jo Fowler (Secretary) 
(tel. 326600) c/o Centre for Documentation and Research, P.O. Box 
2380, Abu Dhabi, UAE. 
Publications: monthly members' newsletter and a bulletin three times 
a year . 
Meetings: open to all, held 1st & 3rd Monday of each month, excepting 
July & August, at the Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi. 
Field trips September-April with smaller-scale research trips 
throughout the year. 
Other information: established 1977. Patron, His Excellency Sheikh 
Nahayyan bin Mubarak al Nahayyan. 
Emirates Natural History Group (al Ain) , P.O. Box 16027, Al Ain, Abu 
Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. 
Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) 
Nature and Ornithological Society of Yemen c/o Mrs M. Higgins, c/o 
British Veterinary Project (Sana' a YAR) , FC0 Bagroom Sana' a, 14 King 
Charles Street, London, SW1A 2 AH, Great Britain. 
Middle East 
Holy Land Conservation Fund, c/o Bertel Bruun, 969 Park Avenue, New 
York, New York 10028, USA. 
LETTERS 
Dear Sir 
As another of the many people who once saw the first Fieldfare Turdus 
pilaris for Iraq (Ibis 101: 171; OSME Bull. 20: 42), may I also point 
out that the problem of waning freshness in report from the Middle East 
described by Stephen Marchant ( OSME Bull . 21: 29) is by no means confined 
to single species, but also applies to whole checklists? Thus, for 
example, his letter was immediately followed by a review of a New list of 
the birds of Masirah Island, Sultanate of Oman , which omits to mention 
that a similar typed checklist was first compiled by M. J. Strickland in 
1971, as reported in the back of the original duplicated version of the 
"new" list in 1975, and that Mike Strickland has also published an account 
