Open plains, scorching and shadeless during the summer, windswept and freezing during the winter night, present a hard environment indeed. The surprising fact is that any form of wild life has been able to exist in such utterly waterless places. Yet up to the beginning of the present century an interesting assemblage of animals existed in the Arabian desert. Even when modern rifles came into general use the species held their own in the vast spaces to a very satisfactory extent. But the last decade has witnessed the advent of a shocking predator, namely the “Mighty Jeep”. It cannot be long now before motorized hunting parties will sweep Arabia's fauna into uttermost corners, where a subsequent drought will whiten its bones.