Part 15

But it is not the individual hunter whose interest lies in sport or science; it is not the man who brings us the first knowledge of many of the inhabitants of the wilderness, and first arouses our interest in them; it is not such as these who should be regarded as the destroyers of the fauna of a foreign land. Rather this is the work of all those powerful influences that everywhere combine to this end during the introduction of civilised life. It has indeed been already proposed, in all seriousness, by some men of science to completely extirpate the wild animals of East Africa, in order thus to circumvent the tsetse fly and other minor pests that may perhaps communicate disease from the wild to the tame cattle. And this, too, before it can be said with any certainty whether these cases of infection do not arise only from a number of very small animals which it would be impossible to exterminate!

Our most important task is now to obtain an accurate knowledge of the fauna of foreign lands. For this purpose we must collect materials which will render the study of this wild life of other lands possible to our scientific institutions; which will place them in a position to give to a wide public an idea of all these rich treasures, and thus awaken an intelligent love for them in the hearts of the pioneers of civilisation.

And then we must devise practicable measures of protection. This is a wide field of labour. The hunter himself must take in hand the intelligent preservation of the wild animals. The measures of protection must be suited to the varying conditions of the wide hunting grounds of foreign lands, and must not be considered only from the stay-at-home point of view.

This is not to be done by mere laments over the extermination of wild life, or even by merely putting limitations on the enjoyment of the chase by the individual hunter. On the contrary, a beneficial result can be obtained only by all European travellers in those countries interchanging their experiences, collecting material, and exerting themselves to the utmost and in concert to devise measures that will, as far as may be, put a stop to the threatened extermination.

This is a great and noble task.

The Survivors

To learn to know anything with precision, to devote oneself to it and master it in its smallest details, one must generally make its study a labour of love. So the spread of more exact knowledge of the manifestations of nature around us must go hand in hand with the awakening of love for them and for the splendours they present to our view. And with this increasing impulse towards research and knowledge must come the desire to prevent as far as possible the rapid destruction of fauna and flora. Public opinion, in truth, has begun to range itself on the side of these much menaced glories of nature.

We have to observe and investigate. We have to get together some small portion of the vast material that is often so uselessly squandered, in order to employ it in the service of special branches of science, and to make some closer knowledge of these things accessible to every one. We have to establish great collections formed on a definite plan, and everywhere to save as much material as possible for scientific and educational purposes, so long as it can still be done. “If these ideas could be brought home to the right quarters, millions would be made available for this object,” writes one of the most learned specialists in these matters. Our zoological gardens and museums are already doing their best, but they are hampered by the want of pecuniary resources. Whilst the largest sums are freely provided for the purchase of antiquities, there is a dearth of means for doing what is necessary to save the treasures of our vanishing fauna while there is still time!

Other countries, America for instance, set us a glorious example. There you see public collections formed, affording panoramas of animal life so splendid, so beautiful, and planned on such grand lines, that the love of nature must be lighted up in the hearts of all who visit them.

What can be saved of these disappearing treasures must suffice for all time, and must in part at least be preserved in fire and thief-proof “zoological treasuries,” for it will be impossible to obtain such things again in the future, no matter what efforts may be made. Thus a great and difficult task presents itself to our museums. We can rightly require of them that they shall not merely exhibit the principal species of the animal world, but that they shall also preserve specimens of the most striking representatives of our still surviving fauna that are likely soon to become extinct. And these specimens must be guarded by all the resources of art and science against light and any other influence that might injure them. For such a far-seeing policy posterity will be grateful to us.

It seems, however, as though some unlucky star presided over the collecting of the larger species of the animal world. Let any one devote himself to these special pursuits and objects, and even if he win thereby the approval of experts and of wide circles of the public, still a certain odium will seem to attach to him. Obviously he must kill a certain number of animals, that are often quite unknown till then, and in almost every case have been hardly studied at all, in order that he may add them to the collections belonging to his native country. He gains the gratitude of science and of the learned, but he has to encounter the prejudices of others. People think that they are justified in throwing upon him, the scientific collector, the reproach of being an exterminator.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A ‘MBEGA (COLOBUS CAUDATUS, Thos.)]

THREE NEW VARIETIES OF EAST AFRICAN WILD BUFFALOES: BUBALUS SCHILLINGSI Mtsch. spec. nov., FROM THE MIDDLE PANGANI, LAKE DJIPE MOMBASA; BUBALUS NUHAHENSIS, Mtsch. spec. nov., FROM UPOGORO, ’NDEMA, ’MBARAGANDU AND THE UPPER RUAHAIS; BUBALUS WEMBARENSIS, Mtsch. spec. nov., FROM THE TSHAIA MARSHES IN THE SOUTHERN WEMBERE STEPPE. THE ILLUSTRATIONS SHOW HOW GREATLY THE FORM OF THE BUFFALO’S HORNS VARIES IN DIFFERENT DISTRICTS, AND GIVE A PROOF OF THE IMPORTANCE OF SCIENTIFIC COLLECTIONS FOR EACH SEPARATE REGION.

I have to thank Professor Matschie for the two lower illustrations.]

Those who speak thus completely forget that it was through the material thus placed before their eyes that they themselves obtained their very first knowledge of these beautiful creatures; that till then they hardly took any interest in such things; and that it is only by means of knowledge secured in this way that regulations for the preservation of these beauties of nature can be devised.

Let us suppose that every museum and scientific collection in the world were provided with a series of specimens of all the varieties of the animal world that are now most seriously threatened with extinction; let us further suppose that each of these institutions secured, besides, duplicate series of the hides and skeletons of each species. To make a striking comparison, all this, beside the wholesale destruction of the animal world of which we have to complain, would be like a week-end sportsman perhaps killing one hare during his whole life compared to the millions of hares killed every year in Germany.

If a species is already reduced to such a state that the taking of a few hundred, or even a few thousand, specimens for scientific purposes will exterminate it, we may say generally that, even without this proceeding, it is inevitably doomed to extinction. But the wretched egg-collecting by youths, for instance, is quite a different matter. Certainly there must be a great deficiency, when continually, year after year, wood and meadow are searched for birds’ nests by thousands of boys. This is obvious, and thus the rarer species are threatened in their very existence.

Great stress ought always to be laid upon the point to which I have here called attention, and I can appeal to every expert on the subject for confirmation of my opinion.

PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDY OF A MALE GIRAFFE GAZELLE (LITHOCRANIUS WALLERI, Brocke) SHOT BY THE AUTHOR. AN EXTREMELY BEAUTIFUL AND RARE SPECIES, FIRST SEEN BY THE AUTHOR IN GERMAN EAST AFRICA IN 1896.]

I think that I have earned a special right to speak on this matter. For the last fifteen years I have hardly ever carried a gun when at home in Europe; I have refused the most pressing invitations to shooting parties; and I have sought pleasure only in the sight of our native wild animals, which I know so well, and in secretly watching and observing them. But in the midst of a yet unstudied foreign fauna, of which we still know little or nothing, where there is question of first obtaining some scanty knowledge oneself, and forming collections for definite scientific research--in the midst of an animal world of this kind I would not hesitate to shoot even large numbers of each species. For there would be good reason for not merely securing well-developed male specimens, as the hunter does, but also females and young animals in all the various stages of growth and colouring. This must be obvious even to a child, and no one will deny to science the right so to act, at least in those regions of Africa which--in comparison with India and other countries--are still untouched by civilisation, and which therefore, in their primitive unchanged condition, afford us doubly interesting results. Now supposing one has got together large collections, and has been so fortunate as to succeed in bringing them down to the coast and home to Europe. A collection of insects or of the lower animals may pass without remark; but woe to the slayer of the larger species of wild animals! These come under the description of “beasts of the chase,” and now a peculiar kind of bacillus quickly develops--the bacillus of “hostility to the hunter,” which, introduced into Europe from the tropics, finds here, too, a fostering soil. Let me be allowed to endeavour to find a prophylactic against this bacillus in these essays. I have already often laid stress upon the facts that such great quantities of the skins and feathers of birds are exported for the purposes of fashion, that by this trade whole species are threatened with extinction; that every individual European is allowed, without any hindrance, to send home his trophies of the chase--trophies which, with only a few exceptions, can have hardly any value for science; above all, that the extermination of the elephant in Africa is being carried out before our very eyes for the sake of his ivory; and that all this is held permissible. But let one make collections for scientific purposes, and scrupulously hand over every skin, every hide, with the horns and skull belonging to it, all carefully labelled, to some museum at home, and, according to widely expressed opinion, he is greatly to blame for the destruction of animal life.

GROUP OF GIRAFFE GAZELLES (IN THE AUTHOR’S POSSESSION) PREPARED BY ROBERT BANZER OF OEHRINGEN. THE ONE ON THE RIGHT IS SHOWN IN ITS CHARACTERISTIC ATTITUDE WHEN BROWSING ON TREES OR BUSHES.]

GROUP, ALSO PREPARED BY BANZER, SHOWING A SNOW-WHITE “BLACK-HOOFED” ANTELOPE, ATTACKED BY A BLACK SERVAL AND TWO OTHERS.]

A SPECIMEN OF THE NEW SPECIES OF HYENA DISCOVERED BY THE AUTHOR IN GERMAN EAST AFRICA (HYENA SCHILLINGSI, Mtsch., NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON).]

Happily in recent years our colonial collections have been considerably augmented. An extraordinarily large quantity of material has been forwarded to the Berlin Natural History Museum, amongst others, by officials, private individuals, and members of the garrisons abroad. Hence valuable results have been obtained for the zoology of these regions. Amongst the satisfactory results of the ever increasing activity in the zoological exploration of the Dark Continent are surprising and repeated discoveries of unknown species of animals, such as the Okapi (Ocapia johnstoni) and a black wild hog, till now completely unknown (Hylochœrus meinertzhageni, Oldf. Thomas). With the help of these collections, Professor Matschie, dealing with the mammalia, and Professor Reichenow with the birds, have succeeded in establishing the fact that each separate region of the Dark Continent possesses its own characteristic fauna. And most important conclusions with regard to the distribution of animals have thus been derived from these great systematic collections. My friend Baron Carlo Erlanger, the well-known African traveller, and the only one who has ever traversed Somaliland from end to end, though unhappily cut off by an early death, was able to confirm these theories, with reference to the countries he explored, by the ample collections he systematically formed. The whole science of zoology in relation to geography has been turned on to new lines of research, and has given the most important and most valuable results. Everything should be done to support efforts of this kind.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

DWARF MUSK DEER, (NESOTRAGUS MOSCHATUS VAN DUBEN) FROM THE AUTHOR’S COLLECTION IN THE BERLIN NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM.]

C. G. Schillings, phot.