Part 28

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Future workers in this field will find that my labours have served to some extent to clear the ground for them, and we may look forward to many interesting achievements. There can be no doubt that the explorer who provides himself with the necessary photographic equipment will find ample scope for his activities.

My own process was simple enough. I stretched lines of string round the heifer or goat which was to serve as a bait, and the lions, hyenas, etc., falling on their prey pulled these strings, which worked the flashlight--the animals thus taking their own photographs. Some of these pictures record new facts in natural history. In my first book, for instance, there is a picture of a lioness making off with her tail raised high in the air in a way no artist would have thought of depicting, and no naturalist have believed to be characteristic.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

MORE ANTELOPES. 1. BLACK-HOOFED ANTELOPE (ÆPYCEROS SUARA, Mtsch.), BUCK. 2. MOUNTAIN REEDBUCK (CERVICAPRA CHANLERI, Rothsch.). 3. GRANT’S GAZELLE (GAZELLA GRANTI, Brooke), DOE. 4. ORYX ANTELOPE (ORYX CALLOTIS, Thos.), BUCK.]

In the course of my labours I had to overcome every description of obstacle, and had constantly to be making new experiments. By the time I had got things right I had so small a stock of materials left at my disposal that I ought to congratulate myself upon my subsequent success. The number of good pictures I secured was far less than I had originally hoped for, but on the other hand it far surpassed what, in those moods of pessimism which followed upon my many failures, I had begun to think I should have to be contented with.

Among my successful efforts I count those which record the fashion in which the lion falls upon his prey, first prowling round it; and those which represent rhinoceroses and hippopotami, leopards and hyenas and jackals, antelopes and zebras making their way down to the waterside to drink; those also which show the way in which hyenas and jackals carry off their spoils, and the relations that exist between them. But a point of peculiar interest that my photographs bring out is the way in which the eyes of beasts of prey shine out in the darkness of night. I have never been able to get any precise scientific explanation of this phenomenon. I have often seen it for myself in the wilderness. Professor Yngve Sjöstedt, a Swedish naturalist, who has travelled in the Kilimanjaro region, tells us that he once saw, quite near his camp, the eyes of at least ten lions shining out from the darkness exactly like lights. I find the following passage, too, in an old book, printed at Nuremberg in 1719: “Travellers tell us (and I myself have seen it) that you can follow the movements of lions in the dark owing to the way in which their glowing eyes shine out like twin lights.”

Even with a small hand-camera it is possible to secure pictures worth having, such as the studies of heads reproduced on the accompanying pages. These must always have a certain value, as they depict for the most part species of animals which have never yet been secured for zoological gardens.

I repeat that there is an immense harvest awaiting the man who is prepared to work thoroughly in this field. Why, for instance, should he not succeed in getting a picture by night of an entire troop of lions? My photographs show how a mating lion and lioness fall on their victim--from different sides; and how three lionesses may be seen quenching their thirst at midnight, all together. With good luck some one may manage to photograph a troop of a dozen or twenty lions hunting their prey--that would be a fine achievement. Or he might secure a wonderful group of bull-elephants on their way down to a drinking-place. The possibilities are immense.

Who has ever seen a herd of giraffes bending down in their grotesque impossible attitudes to quench their thirst? A photographic record of such a sight would be invaluable now that the species is doomed to extinction. But, apart from such big achievements as these, trustworthy photographs of wild life in all its forms--even of the smallest beasts and birds--are of the utmost value, especially in the case of rare species that are dying out.

This is true not merely of Africa, but of other parts of the world as well. Who is attempting to secure photographic records of the great elk and mighty bears of Alaska? or of the wild life of the Arctic zone--the polar bear, the walrus, and the seal?

The Arctic regions should be made to tell their last secrets to the camera for the benefit of posterity, nor should the wild sheep and ibex of the unexplored mountains of Central Asia be overlooked.

These things are not to be easily achieved, and they involve a considerable outlay of money. It would be, however, money well spent. Money is being lavished upon many other enterprises which could very well wait, and which might be carried out just as successfully some time in the future. These are possibilities, on the other hand, that are diminishing every year, and that presently will cease to exist. I trust sincerely that it may be my lot to continue working in this field.

“If only the matter could be brought home to the minds of the right people,” wrote one of our best naturalists, after examining my work, “tens of thousands of pounds would be devoted to this end.”

Envoi

I may be permitted a few words in conclusion to reaffirm certain views to which I cling. I would not have my readers attach any special importance to what I myself have achieved, but I would like them to take to heart the moral of my book.

It may be summed up in a very few words. I maintain that wild life everywhere, and in all its forms, should be religiously protected--that the forces of nature should not be warred against more than our struggle for existence renders absolutely inevitable; and that it is the sportsman’s duty, above all, to have a care for the well-being of the whole of the animal world.

Whoever glances over the terrible list of so-called “harmful” birds and beasts done to death every year in Germany must bemoan this ruthless destruction of a charming feature of our countryside, carried out by sportsmen in the avowed interest of certain species designated as “useful.” The realm of nature should not be regarded exclusively from the point of view of sport; the sportsman should stand rather in the position of a guardian or trustee, responsible to all nature-lovers for the condition of the fauna and flora left to his charge.

I would have the German hunter establish the same kind of reservations, the same kind of “sanctuaries” for wild life that exist in America. In our German colonies, especially in Africa, we should model those reservations on English examples. Such institutions, in which both flora and fauna should be really well looked after, would be a source at once of instruction and enjoyment of the highest kind to all lovers of natural history.

Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

CHEAP EDITION

“The most remarkable travel book that has ever been published.”--Graphic.

With Flashlight and Rifle

A Record of Hunting Adventures and Studies in Wild Life

By C. G. SCHILLINGS Translated by FREDERIC WHYTE

With an Introduction by Sir Harry Johnston, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., Illustrated with 302 of the Author’s “untouched” photographs taken by day and night.

Printed throughout on English art paper, in one handsome vol., =824= pages super-royal 8vo, =12s. 6d.= net

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT wrote of Mr. Schillings’s book: