I imagine that all the"Thlasseus" terns will be? like the 
Sandwich but would be glad of any confirmation of this 
you could get ♦ What is the begging of Anous like ? I 
can' t make much of Watson's description of the female tapping 
the male s bill. 
By the way in his paper on 3 1 e r na e u r y g na t ha I saw that 
Junge end Voous mentioned that they had received unpublished 
notes from Amadon on the comparative taxonomy oi terns. 
Is someone about to publish something about this much neglected 
group? Particularly about the broader sub-divid ions ? and 
the realtionship of the group with the gulls. Presumably 
"terns" even if poly phyle tic , are derived from gull -like ancsetors 
and have become more speciliaed for fish— eating, but 1 csn t 
find even that much written o.own by a reputable taxonomist. 
probably see Fae on her way west - or at lee at I gather there 
is a good chance - and will get it from her. x he Hard Core 
is rapidly disintegrating and next year there will be.noone 
left here except Margaret and us. One new man is coming, 
one Manley, and Niko talks about putting him at Ravenglass but 
we will try and save him from such an unkind fate. 'Jli is 
now an assistant lecturer at Birckbexck and David Blest, a 
n t . 
appears to be making a tremendous success of it - as you Ccin 
imagine. They have managed to keep Ramona out for the time 
but we expect her to come on any day - ever since 3:ie got 
herself into the Womans Column in the Daily Telegraph as a 
competitor to Lotties Hass and Michaels- -Oenise. Philip got 
his thesis in at the same time a,s I submitted mine and. with 
the same hideous travail. Thank God I shall never have to 
do another. He (Philip) has a job at Edinburgh in as a 
Rpsparnh Officer at a ooultrv research institue aAd hopes 
Ik append notes on your Extraneous Activities MS. 
There is quite a lot of news from here but you will 
