Part 27

The ibex, which was once also common in Germany, has been found by Dr. G. Merzbacher in the central Tian-Shan region in the form of Ibex sibirica merzbacheri: and two years ago by G. Leisewitz in such great numbers that the appearance of flocks of hundreds of them was a daily experience.

The Hudson Bay Company put on the market in the year 1891 1,358 skins of the musk ox (Ovibos moschatus), but only 271 in the year 1901. In the year 1878 the same company sold 102,715 skins of the Canadian beaver, but only 44,200 in the year 1892. A striking example of the results of excessive exploitation of hunting grounds!

Besides other sources, I take these data from an interesting article by C. Brock, in the periodical Die Jagd. This writer estimates the area devoted to the chase in the German Empire at 54,000,000 hectares; the number of shots fired in a year at game at 16,000,000, besides some 6,000,000 shots fired at animals that are not game. He rightly notes that for the individual the whole business of sport is a losing or non-productive occupation, but one of productive value for the households of the country folk, as about 130,000,000 marks are annually spent upon it.

Professor Haberer lately found strychnine in use in various ways in many places in Eastern Asia.

See, amongst other writings of his, Outdoor Pastimes, by Theodore Roosevelt.

On the destruction of the turtle-dove (Turtur turtur, L.) during its migration to Greece, see Otmar Reiser, Curator of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Materialen zu einer Ornis Balcanica. At Syra one sportsman shoots as many as a hundred in a day; at Paxos, according to the Grand Duke Ludwig Salvator, they are killed in heaps. The lands of the Strophades Islands are completely equipped with huge falling snares and shooting-stands for the systematic massacre of the “Trigones.” Everywhere in Greece when the cry of “Trigones!” is heard, fire is opened upon the newcomers.

Expeditions in uninhabited districts have sometimes been entirely supplied by shooting wild animals.

Cf. Schlobach, Deutsch-Ostafrikan. Zeitg. 1 Beiblatt, 10 Februar, 1906.

Houston Stuart Chamberlain, Immanuel Kant.

According to the latest observations of Professor Yngwe Sjöstedt these nut-galls are inhabited by three different species of ants.

Cf. also Prof. Yngwe Sjöstedt on the destruction of wild animals by the Boers in the Kilimanjaro district, in the Täglichen Rundschau, Berlin, 1906. Professor Sjöstedt travelled through these districts for the purpose of making a collection of their fauna for the Copenhagen Museum, and visited the Merker Lakes with a view to securing a hippopotamus.

The destruction of wild animals by the Boers in the Kilimanjaro district was in every way opposed by the central and local authorities, but failing the possibility of strict control it does not seem to have been possible to make the regulations effective. Prof. Sjöstedt found the Boers in no way settled down, but roving about the country in pursuit of the wild animals.

It appears that the explorer completed some of these sketches after his return with the help of stuffed specimens, but he drew others entirely from nature on the African velt.

So too, for example, Wissmann never killed a lion. This is sufficient proof of the difficulty of observing animal life. The author may take this opportunity of calling attention to the remarkable work of this departed explorer, In den Wildnissen Afrikas, and thinks himself fortunate in the possession of a letter from his hand approving of his method of observing animals. This letter expresses in words that go to the heart the love for and understanding of the beauty of the African fauna that characterised this successful and distinguished explorer.

Take, for instance, his description of the Ugalla River in a letter to his grandfather, General von Meyerinck, in his work Von Sansibar zum Tanjanjika (published by Hermann Schalow, Leipzig, 1888).

Unfortunately such ridiculous and ugly names as gemsbock, hartebeest, wildebeest, etc., have gradually come into general use.

Pauw is Dutch for peacock.

Cf. Prof. P. Matschie, Die Säugetiere Deutsch-Ostafrikas (“The Mammalia of German East Africa”), p. 96, and my work With Flashlight and Rifle.

From the Cameroon district in West Africa Professor Yngwe Sjöstedt writes to me also of a nearly related species of cuckoo that has much the same cry.

Franz Hermann Meissner in his work, Arnold Böcklin, says “I have often found that I had to consider these pictures with the blue eyes of an old Ostrogoth seer of primitive days.” And I am of opinion that in order to take full delight in the charm of the tropics one must look on them with northern eyes.

Cf. Professor Dr. A. Reichenow, Die Vögel Afrikas.

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]