Chapter XXIX: Felis Leo, the Lion (1)

ONE OF CORNWALLIS HARRIS’S SKETCHES, SHOWING HOW HALF A CENTURY
AGO NUMBERS OF LIONS WERE TO BE FOUND TOGETHER IN BROAD
DAYLIGHT IN SOUTH AFRICA. I HAVE SEEN SIMILAR GATHERINGS IN
EAST AFRICA, NOTABLY ON JANUARY 25, 1897. HARRIS’S SKETCH SHOWS
THE GREAT DEVELOPMENT OF THE MANE IN THE NOW NEARLY EXTINCT
SOUTH AFRICAN LION, A CONTRAST TO THE ALL BUT MANELESS LIONS OF
EAST AFRICA.]

Let us now follow a little more closely, under the guidance of English writers, the process of the extermination of the South African animal world. This lamentable work was completed very rapidly in the course of only something like a hundred years. From numerous English authorities, as well as from the publications of the Society already named, I have been able to ascertain that the last “blaauwbok” was killed by the Boers in Cape Colony about the year 1800. From extant sketches of this wild animal, it appears that it was a smaller species of the splendid horse-antelopes still to be found in other parts of Africa. During the following seventy-five years the extermination of several other kinds of animals was systematically carried out; and exactly eighty years later the last quagga, a kind of zebra (_Equus quagga_) was killed by the Boers. In England there is only one single specimen preserved, and that in a very poor condition. It is to be found in the British Museum. A further sacrifice to the advancing Europeans was the giant, wide-mouthed, “white” rhinoceros (_Rhinoceros simus_, Burch.), a mighty creature, that formerly ranged in thousands over the grassy plains of South Africa. The length of a horn taken from one of them is given as 6 ft. 9 in., English measurement! Even as late as the year 1884, a single trader was able to pile up huge masses, small hills, of these rhinoceros horns by equipping some four hundred tribesmen of the Matabele race with guns and ammunition and sending them out rhinoceros-hunting. Now it is difficult to get even a few specimens of this animal for the museums, and they are almost worth their weight in gold. Information lately obtained seems to indicate that a very small number of these mighty beasts, probably not more than thirty-five in all, are still living their life in the midst of inaccessible swamps in Zululand and Mashonaland, in a district that, on account of its deadly climate, is almost closed to Europeans. However, the Government of Natal has, I am pleased to say, made the killing any animal of this species, without legal permission, a crime to be punished by a fine of £300.

An English officer, Captain (afterwards Sir) William Cornwallis Harris, is an authoritative witness as to the extermination of wild animals in South Africa in 1836, though it must have been going on for a long time before that without any written record. The Boers must have slaughtered hecatombs of wild animals, though up to that date we have no first-hand written evidence on the subject.[18] Their proceedings were precisely of the same character as the events that have occurred in our own day in connection with the destruction of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and other animals throughout Africa. This destruction goes on silently, and only a few men who have a special knowledge of the circumstances bring some information about it to the world at large. The rest keep silence, and mostly have good grounds for so doing.

The descriptions given by Harris, Oswell, Vardon, C. J. Anderson and their contemporaries give some idea of what enormous multitudes of wild creatures then wandered over the plains of South Africa. We are inclined to underestimate the abundance of the fauna of earlier epochs. The process of animal-destruction by the hand of man has been going on from immemorial times. For thousands of years man has been continually pressing the animal world back more and more, and it has had to give way in the unequal struggle. This process has been going on so slowly and so imperceptibly that it is only by the scanty remnants left from earlier times that we can form some estimate of the wealth that has disappeared. These are no empty fancies. All the lonely far-off islands of the world’s seas, the little visited Polar lands, and all the uninhabited steppes and wildernesses give us evidence of this. Not only from the lips of Cornwallis Harris, but also from some of his contemporaries, we have descriptions of the former abundance of wild life in the Cape districts of South Africa. At that time the country was, in the literal sense of the word, covered with countless herds of Cape buffaloes, white-tailed gnus, blessbock, bontebock, zebras, quaggas, hill-zebras, hartebeests, eland-antelopes, horse-antelopes, oryx-antelopes, waterbuck, impallah-antelopes, springbocks, and ostriches. Herds of hundreds of elephants were to be seen. Every marsh, every river-bed, was literally overcrowded with hippopotami. All other kinds of animals that are now so scarce, such as the large and handsome kudu, and all the different kinds of small wild animals, were to be met with in vast numbers. Although since the year 1652 South Africa had been to a continually increasing extent occupied by the Boers, all these wonderful things had managed to survive in rich profusion up to the moment when, about a hundred years ago, the great war of extermination began. Various causes contributed to bring this about: the increasing numbers of the settlers, their continual penetration farther and farther into the interior, and, above all things, the improvement of firearms.

The natives, although very numerous in South Africa, had, as happens everywhere, left the animal life of the country in its abundance to the Europeans, who were overrunning the land in increasing numbers. It was reserved for these to bring the war of extermination to an end in a short time. Truly a melancholy spectacle!

Wilhelm Bölsche describes all this in fitting words:[19] “In Africa,” he says, “a wonderful drama is to-day unfolding itself before our eyes. It is the downfall of the whole of a mighty animal world. What is being destroyed is the main remnant of the great mammalian development of the Tertiary period. Once it spread in the same fulness over Europe, Asia, and North America. Now in its last refuge this most wonderful wave of life is rapidly ebbing away. Everything contributes to this result--human progress, human folly, and even disease among the animals themselves.”

SKETCH OF A HERD OF ELEPHANTS IN SOUTH AFRICA, BY HARRIS.
IT GIVES AN IDEA OF THE ABUNDANCE OF ELEPHANTS IN THE CAPE
DISTRICTS SIXTY YEARS AGO. THIS EXPLORER’S SKETCHES GIVE A TRUE
PICTURE OF THE LANDSCAPE AS WELL AS OF THE ANIMALS.]

To give an example: Through the trifling fact that we have ivory balls for billiards, the African elephant goes to destruction. The individual cannot stop this; but what he can do is to secure more material for each special branch of science before the door is closed, and to once more observe in their primeval surroundings the last elephants, wild buffaloes, giraffes--those last living vestiges of the Tertiary period.

But above all, the sketches of Le Vaillant, a French explorer, who, about 1780, set out from Cape Town on his travels into the interior, are of great importance for our study of the former abundance of animal life in South Africa. They are all the more interesting for German readers because he traversed part of what is now German South-West Africa, and gives in his book an account of its condition at that time. He, too, tells of absolutely incredibly great multitudes of wild animals; on the banks of the Orange River he comes upon great herds of elephants and giraffes, and he cannot find enough to say of the astonishing wealth of animal life. For those who know German South-West Africa, his narrative is of special interest. He formed collections which he brought back with him to his native country, and to all appearance is a fairly trustworthy authority, though at the same time, like many contemporary and later travellers, here and there he makes assertions that are clearly unwarrantable. For instance, in one place he tells how he once rode a zebra, that he had wounded, for a considerable distance, back to his camp.

Some fifty years later, at the period of the journeys of Captain William Cornwallis Harris,[20] as I have already remarked, the same conditions prevailed, with regard to the abundance of wild animals, as in the days of Le Vaillant. It was almost a daily experience for the traveller to be molested by lions. The Vaal River then teemed with hippopotami. What is now the site of Pretoria was inhabited by a number of rhinoceroses, that were absolutely an annoyance to the explorer: “Out of every bush peeped the horrible head of one of these creatures.” Of the neighbourhood of Mafeking he tells us that the gatherings of zebras and white-tailed gnus literally covered the whole plain; that with his own eyes he had at one time seen at least fifteen thousand head of wild animals! In another place he tells us of an absolutely overwhelming spectacle. He saw at the same time more than three hundred elephants; to use his own expression, the plain looked like one undulating mass.

William Cotton Oswell, whom I have mentioned in my earlier work, and who died as lately as 1893, knew the countries of South Africa in the days of Livingstone, and gives the same account of them as his predecessor Harris. He once came upon more than four hundred elephants gathered together in one herd on the open velt. Unfortunately, like so many others, he published very few sketches.

Gordon Cumming, a traveller well known to the German public through Brehms’ _Tierleben_, has also left us sketches of those days that corroborate the descriptions given by his contemporaries. He tells how, in the year 1860, a great drive was organised in the Orange Free State in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh, afterwards Grand Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The number of wild animals driven together by the natives, which included zebras, quaggas, gnus, cow-antelopes, blessbock, springbocks, and ostriches, was estimated at five-and-twenty thousand. The number killed on this one day was reckoned at about six thousand animals, and a number of natives were trampled to death by the herds of wild beasts.

At this time there were still Europeans in South Africa who made elephant-hunting their ordinary business. Now there are neither elephants nor indeed any other kind of wild animal in numbers worth mentioning in these once rich hunting grounds. They have all been killed off in the course of a hundred years. Where once hundreds of thousands of gnus lived their life, there are now only a few hundred specimens carefully preserved and guarded. And the same is the case with all other wild animals. Many species are gone completely and for ever. _A similar process will go on slowly but surely throughout the whole of Africa, wherever civilisation penetrates. There is only one chance of the beautiful wild life of Africa being permanently preserved, and that lies in the hunters themselves consenting to protect and spare it._

It has been rightly remarked by such a competent authority as A. H. Neumann (who is, moreover, one of the most experienced of English elephant hunters) that the continued existence of many wild African species is not incompatible with the progress of civilisation. He points out that we can only reckon with some degree of certainty on the effective preservation of wild animals, where not only reservations have been established for them, but where also a considerable amount of control can be exercised over both Europeans and natives. In his opinion, for instance, a mere regulation forbidding the shooting of female elephants is impracticable: “I should like,” he says, “to see one of those who have drawn up such a regulation come into the African bush, and there show us how we are to distinguish between female and bull elephants in these impenetrable thickets.”

In the British colonies in Africa reservations for wild animals have been established with most successful results. Those of British East Africa, the Sudan and Somaliland, and finally of British Central Africa, taken together, have about five times the area of the Victoria Nyanza.

_C. G. Shillings, phot._

GROUP OF WILD ANIMALS AT HAGENBECK’S ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS AT
STETTINGEN, NEAR HAMBURG. THE ANIMALS LIVE IN OPEN SPACES
ARRANGED TO REPRESENT THEIR NATURAL SURROUNDINGS, AND THE
SPECTATORS ARE PROTECTED BY WIDE TRENCHES AND GRILLES. HERR
HAGENBECK IS SEEN ON THE LEFT.]

By means of reports made as carefully as possible by the district authorities, estimates have been obtained of the numbers of existing wild animals. In the laying out of the reservations the very migratory habits of the African fauna have been taken into consideration as far as is practicable, and by strict protective regulations of various kinds most satisfactory results have been secured. In the Transvaal Colony, too, a reservation has been marked out in the Barberton district between the Olifant River and the Portuguese frontier. Any one shooting in this reservation without a permit is liable to a fine of £100, or six months’ imprisonment. There is a very interesting official report as to the wild inhabitants of this reservation. “It contains one old rhinoceros (with shot-marks on its hide), a small herd of elephants, a considerable supply of ostriches, from five to nine giraffes, a satisfactory quantity of gnus, and also of ‘black-heeled’ or impallah-antelopes, two or three small herds of buffaloes, several herds of zebras, numerous waterbuck and kudus, and a small number of horse-antelopes. On the other hand, whether oryx-antelopes and eland are still to be found there appears to the author of the report in the highest degree doubtful.”

However, in the extensive reservations that have been established in other British possessions in Africa, and especially in those of the Sudan, a large number of the beautifully formed dwellers of the wilderness still live their life, and this must be a delight to the heart of every sportsman.

It is to be hoped that through thus establishing “sanctuaries” (as the English call them), with the consequent supervision, a means has been found of protecting the indigenous wild life of Africa, as well of America, for a long time to come.

In German colonies, too, efforts are being made to preserve, as far as possible, the native fauna. The more our views can be made clear, the more complete the survey of this difficult subject can be made by the combined experience of many experts being gradually brought to bear together upon it, the sooner may we anticipate satisfactory results from this co-operative action. For years I have been following with close interest everything connected with this question, and my wide correspondence with officers, officials, and private individuals warrants me in concluding that on all sides there is an energetic movement in progress. Of course, we have to face serious difficulties in such a campaign. Thus it seems, according to numerous and trustworthy reports, that the attempt to establish Boer settlements in the Kilimanjaro district in East Africa has had, and still is having, very fatal results for the once splendid wild life of that region. And, indeed, it is no easy matter to reconcile a colony of Boers--the people who have already made such a clean sweep of the wild life of South Africa--to the preservation of the fauna of the country. One can see how difficult the regulation of these matters is for the authorities.[21]

We must not forget also that, as a result of the wonderful improvements in firearms, the problem of the protection of wild animals presents itself to-day in quite a different fashion from that of the days of the hunters of fifty, or even of twenty-five years ago.

But it is not the individual hunter whose interest lies in sport or science[22]; 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.

IV

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._

A PAIR OF GUEREZAS (_COLOBUS CAUDATUS_, Thos.). THIS LIFELIKE
GROUP WAS PREPARED BY THE SKILLED TAXIDERMIST KERZ, OF THE
STUTTGART MUSEUM.]

But in this department it is to all increasing extent the duty of our German museums to promote a knowledge of and an interest in the animal world of far-off lands by the display of ample collections, so arranged as to convey instruction. There has already been gratifying progress in this respect, but it is clear that for the development of these ideas we need more extensive, up-to-date buildings for our collections and museums. Other countries, especially England, and above all America, are far in advance of us in this matter. Our zoological gardens have the task of putting the _living_ animal world before us. Happily we are doing this by far-sighted methods. To the Zoological Gardens of Berlin belongs the credit of having, to a continually increasing extent, arranged a display of the animal world in appropriate surroundings, and with reference to systematic classification and to its relations with geographical distribution and ethnological science, so far as one can assume the connection or companionship of certain species with man. There we see the disappearing species of wild cattle housed, each according to its peculiar character, in enclosures that are strictly true to nature, and artistically designed. Thus, for instance, the American bison--now hardly to be obtained for its weight in gold is shown in surroundings that remind us of the North American Indians, these also a disappearing race. The ostrich-house takes us back to the land of the Pharaohs, of which the ostrich was once a characteristic inhabitant, as well as the ichneumon, the crocodile, and the hippopotamus. Then the class of rodents is brought before us in almost poetical surroundings, that seem quite to justify the German animal stories of the Middle Ages, and that are calculated to produce quite a different effect on the mind from that of a stiffly arranged exhibition of the regulation type, especially in the case of the rising generation. But on account of the difficulty of securing and maintaining certain species, and their shortness of life in close captivity, our zoological gardens can only properly carry out their programme so long as it is possible for them to continually renew their stock of animals.

On the other hand, the museums are all the more responsible for setting before our eyes the various species of animals even long after these have become extinct, and they must do this by means of works of art executed by the hand of man, masterpieces of taxidermy.

And by masterpieces of taxidermy I mean artistic groups of “stuffed” animals that will, as far as may be, show us their life and action, their ways and habits. In former times this work was left to the so-called “animal-stuffer.” He took a hide, filled it out with some material or other, and then, so far as he could, gave it the appearance of a quadruped or a bird. Thus one sees a stuffed hippopotamus of this good old time which looks, not like such an animal, but like a gigantic sausage. One sees stags or antelopes that somewhat resemble the wooden toys associated with the Christmas boxes of my childhood, and not the particular species of animals which they are intended to represent--in short, wretched caricatures with neither beauty nor fidelity to nature.

_C. G. Schillings, phot._

BLACK-HOOFED ANTELOPE IN THE CARLSRUHE MUSEUM.]

_C. G. Schillings, phot._

GIRAFFE GAZELLE AND DWARF ANTELOPE IN THE CARLSRUHE MUSEUM.]

_C. G. Schillings, phot._

HEAD OF AN AFRICAN WART-HOG SHOT BY THE AUTHOR.]

_C. G. Schillings, phot._

PHOTOGRAPH OF AN OSTRICH’S NEST, JUST AS IT WAS FOUND. THE BIRD’S TRACKS MAY BE SEEN IMPRINTED ON THE SAND. THE DARK SPOTS ON SOME OF THE EGGS ARE PATCHES OF SAND.]

Nowadays, however, more than this must be done--the best must be insisted on. Instead of the “stuffer,” the artist must come upon the scene. Using the methods of the sculptor, he can artistically fashion a form that will be true to life, and clothe this form with the hide or skin. Happily by these means we now find such works of art exhibited in ever increasing numbers, not only in museums abroad, but also in the public collections of our own country. But as yet this new department of artistic activity is not generally as well understood as it should be. It is still far too little valued.

What labour has to be devoted to the artistically correct setting up of even one single large mammal in a museum--for instance, a giraffe! First the animal must be hunted down in the wilderness, and its hide carefully prepared. Then, if it has been brought home in good condition, there follows a second laborious preparation, and finally the setting up. The difficult building up of the framework, and the work upon the giant beast till all is complete, require the labour of nearly a year. The very first conditions for the success of the whole are great patience, knowledge, and an ideal that is both artistic and true to nature.

Our illustrations show, in its various stages, the progress of the setting up of one of the giraffes I collected in Africa. It is easy to understand that besides artistic and scientific ability for the correct moulding of the form, various complex manipulations are required before the giant beast again stands before us as if “reawakened to life.”

I have further tried to show by illustrations of another giraffe, and of a series of antelopes, down to the tiny dwarf antelope, how under the hand of the artist the animal world can be made to rise up again, as if waked anew to life.

All our larger museums ought to exhibit the most important and most prominent representatives of the animal kingdom modelled in attractive groups in their natural surroundings.

In America it has become the custom for private individuals to place at the disposal of the zoological institutions extensive collections and large sums of money. With this help they are able to produce artistic work, true to nature, works of art, the consideration of which gives the spectator an insight into the life and habits of the animal world of his native land as well as of foreign countries. Unfortunately this custom has hardly yet been introduced amongst us.

My native city of Frankfurt[23] can claim the honour of possessing, in the time-honoured Senckenberg Institute (now transferred to a new home), a museum founded by private effort and private interests, where one may see collections formed for exhibition, that may be pointed out as models of their kind.

The collector of such things can partake of no greater pleasure than he experiences when, making a tour of the museums of various places at home, he sees awakened to new life the wild creatures he formerly observed and laid low in far-off lands. So I could not deny myself the pleasure of adding to this book a number of pictures of animals and groups of animals which I secured in the wastes of Africa, and which are now set up in various museums. These are trophies that must allure every sportsman. It is of course not so easy a matter to secure them as it is to hack off without any trouble the antlers or horns of some wild animal that one has shot.

_C. G. Schillings, phot._

DRYING ORNITHOLOGICAL SPECIMENS FOR MY COLLECTION.

_C. G. Schillings, phot._

GROUP MAINLY COMPOSED OF THE AUTHOR’S TROPHIES IN THE CARLSRUHE
MUSEUM. IN FRONT, BELOW, FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, WATERBUCK, GRANT’S
GAZELLE, BOEHM’S ZEBRA, YOUNG ELAND; AND ON THE RIGHT A YOUNG
OKAPI (_OCAPIA JOHNSTONI_) FROM THE CONGO STATE, THE GIFT OF
THE KING OF THE BELGIANS.]

_C. G. Schillings, phot._

WOMEN OF THE RAHE OASIS IN A BANANA GROVE.]

Paintings, true to life, from the hands of artists, photographs taken directly from life, and finally these groups _awakened, as it were, to a new life_, are the means that can, and should, exert an educating and informing influence, so that all the beauty of this department of created nature may not be accessible only to a few learned men, but be open to all in general. If to an ever increasing degree this object finds support in influential circles, we shall thus obtain what must be somehow obtained. In the presence of the progress of industry and civilisation no one can indeed permanently prevent by protective measures the disappearance of certain species, even though we may hope to still delay the process of extinction by suitable regulations. But on this ground the duty that I have already indicated becomes more clearly imperative upon us. Its fulfilment cannot fail to be rewarded, in the case of all who take part in it, by the only true satisfaction that is given to mortals, the feeling of having done all that was in any way in our power to do.

V

Sport and Nature in Germany

Not by far-away Lake Nakuro alone has “the Spell of the Elelescho” lived. It has lived, and still lives, all over the world; only that it goes by other names, and is linked with other symbols.

In the brief summer of the Polar regions, battling with the snow and ice and the long night, it lives in the few stunted willows and the scanty reindeer-moss. It can only be fully understood where the ungainly walrus, the mighty Polar bear, coloured like his own snowfields, and the herds of fur-adorned musk oxen and reindeer give life to the wilderness, and millions of sea-birds cover the cliffs, or wheel shrieking through the air. To all these creatures the appearance of man in these wide regions is so strange and unaccustomed that they show no fear of him, and even come hurrying up from all sides to look curiously at this strange new being.

In the high mountain regions of Central Asia, too, this spell survives, associated with the flocks of those timid creatures the primitive wild sheep, with the graceful wild goats, with the stately ibex,[24] and with the life and movement of the countless huge bears of the mountains, and with a strange flora that I myself have never looked upon, but of whose existence I am as persuaded as of that of the spell itself.

It is to be found in the jungles of India, whence the tolerant natives have never driven it out. They have not expelled the animal world from its paradise. There in the region of the lotus-flower the spell may perhaps be recognised on still, moonlit nights.

It survives everywhere: in the Australian bush, in the New and the Old World, on all islands, in all rivers and waters, in the life and movement of the waves and depths of the ocean, so full of secrets everywhere; in a word, where man has not yet driven it away.

Once it lived everywhere in Germany, and even to-day it is still to be found in many places. It has its being where the mighty elk made its home on moor and marsh-land, and our forefathers hunted the aurochs and the bison in the primitive forest. To-day it is associated with the edelweiss and the chamois in the Alps; it has its being in the oak and beech woods, and where the green current of the Rhine flows down, or where the stag sends afar his cry of challenge to his rival, and the huntsman makes his way over the moor.

There one still experiences the spell of the Elelescho. But everywhere, all over the world, everywhere in our Fatherland, it once lived and held sway.

We may hope that the intimate and beautiful relations that the German sportsman establishes between himself and nature in his Fatherland will for a long, long time be handed down from generation to generation, and thus result in the maintenance and preservation of the noble old spell of the woodland and the wilderness. The ideal of _true German sportsmanship_ has been developed in as high and full a sense as that of _fair play in sport_ in England.

Both of these ideals will be judged in unfriendly fashion only by those who regard them from a distorted point of view. The English ideal of sport is winning the world to itself; the German ideal must do the same.

Coming from a good German school of sport, I consider myself fortunate in having learned to know the wonderful animal world of Africa. There is no doubt whatever that I must ascribe to the influence of this school the fact that my accounts of what I had experienced and seen met with such an appreciative reception both at home and abroad.

How wonderful is the chase in Germany! The primitive attraction for the chase must be a part of every man. One need only once have seen the excitement that seizes upon a gathering of thousands if on a sudden a hare or some other wild creature comes into sight. At such a moment, almost without exception, every one of them is on the move, without the least reflection, and even notwithstanding the consciousness that in no case can he himself secure the prize. It is the call of a strong impulse deep rooted in men. But in our Fatherland how grandly and nobly what we mean by “true sportsmanship” has developed out of this primitive instinct!

A certain kind of organisation of the business of the chase must have been in existence even in primeval times. Those who have made a study of this department of the life of nomadic hunters in many lands tell us that tribes and groups of families hunt only in well-defined areas, and as they value their lives do not venture to pass these boundaries. I have learned the same thing by my own personal experience of the Wandorobo and other nomad huntsmen of the African plateau. It must therefore have been the case everywhere, from the times when primitive men, the cave-dwellers, began their struggle with the mighty beasts of primeval days, down to our own times, when the chase is more and more regulated till at last it becomes the exclusive property of the owner of the land.

As a consequence of this right came measures for game preservation both against the interference of the stranger sportsman, and as regards the wild creatures themselves. Increasing knowledge taught the hunter that he could not kill more than a certain number of wild animals without extirpating them entirely in his district.[25] Hence grew up our complex game-laws of to-day, and the general feeling that our hunting grounds should be used in as intelligent a way as possible. In Germany this problem has been solved to a remarkable extent. German sport has an important influence on the welfare of the people. Great numbers of our people are strengthened in body and mind by the chase, and, thanks to it, considerable sums of money are added to the resources of the country folk.

According to a moderate estimate there are now in Germany upwards of half a million sportsmen. Each year they kill about 40,000 head of red and fallow deer, about 200,000 roebuck, 4,000,000 hares, 4,000,000 partridges, and 400,000 wild ducks, in all some 25,000,000 kilograms (over 50,000,000 lb.) of wild game, of a value of 25,000,000 marks (£1,250,000), and forming nearly one per cent. of the total meat supply of Germany. The game leases bring in about 40,000,000 marks annually (£2,000,000).[26] But these very sportsmen, who every year kill such a large quantity of wild animals, must at the same time be protectors and guardians of this same animal life! Strange as it may seem, many species of wild animals would have been long ago extinct if there were no sportsmen. For imperative reasons, the hunter must at the same time undertake the part of protector.

_But this idea ought to be to include a great deal more than is now the case._ As I have already said, no nation has known so well how to form a beautiful and poetical ideal of the chase and the spirit of sport as the Germans have done. But it is not to be denied that this perfect development, even in its very completeness, has in a certain sense become one-sided, in so far as sportsmen restrict their protection and guardianship to certain species of animals; one-sided, too, inasmuch as to a certain extent they regard their mission from the point of view of a close corporation. In this there is a certain advantage, but also a certain amount of danger now that, as a result of the rapid progress of civilisation, changes are introduced in every department of life so much more quickly than in earlier times.

Huntsmen and fishermen desire the complete extermination of all kinds of animals that they consider to be a cause of injury to their sport. The result is the destruction of many kinds of animals that are beautiful in form and constitute an ornament of the landscape. By the same kind of reasoning sportsmen, in their capacity of landlords and forest owners, ought to demand the extermination of the wild animals that obtain their food from field and forest. Naturally sportsmen do not want this, but they should, as far as may be, let themselves be guided by higher points of view. This is the case already in many instances. For example, as an instance of zealous game supervision inspired by scientific principles, we have lately had to welcome a valuable idea of Forest Commissioner Count Bernstorff. According to his plan, small labels that will not annoy the animals (the so-called “Game marks”) are attached near the ears of young roebucks and red deer. Thus their resting-places, their movements, their growth, can be carefully observed.... We are, therefore, actually living in a time when to a certain extent each individual head of game is numbered!

Interesting and valuable as such measures may be, should we not extend our loving care also to the animals that, though they are not reckoned as game, yet adorn and give animation to the land we live in? Some great landlords have given a bright example of progress in this direction. Thus in Hungary there are sporting estates on which wolf and bear are not completely exterminated, and in Germany estates on which the fox is spared to a certain extent. The result has been to the advantage of stags’ antlers and bucks’ horns on the estates in question. English landlords allow a free home to a pair of peregrine falcons or eagles, so as not to allow these beautiful birds to be completely extirpated.

From these examples it is clear that there can be various opinions as to the view generally taken with regard to “predatory animals.” If there is not merely a selfish protection for game animals, but also protection for the other mammals and birds, we shall thus preserve from extinction some of the glorious forms of the realm of nature, and prevent their being sacrificed to narrow interests. There is food for thought in the fact that (as I have often had occasion to observe in Africa) in primitive countries there is to be found an astounding abundance of animal life. _Since prehistoric times man has been engaged in hunting with his simple weapons without, on the whole, very much diminishing the number of animals._ A striking proof that the destruction of wild life is the work of the Europeans themselves, and of the native hunters carrying firearms under their authority, is afforded by the fate of the North American buffalo, the whales, walruses, and seals of the frozen seas, and finally by that of the elephant in certain districts and of the South African fauna taken as a whole.

We should not therefore act so rigorously in the proscription of our so-called “predatory” animals. Yet, for instance, my near neighbour, Freiherr H. Geyer von Schweppenberg, has lately shown that our pretty water-hen (_Gallinula chloropus_, L.) can do a great deal of damage to grass and corn.

In South Africa what are called “poisoning clubs” have been organised, which aim at the extermination of “noxious animals” by poison. The use of poison ought to be entirely forbidden by legal enactments, with the exception, perhaps, of its administration for scientific purposes. The strychnine canister--the use of which ought only to be allowed, and that in exceptional cases, to those who are making scientific collections--is now making its appearance everywhere all over the world. I have had news from the most distant countries of its employment, unhappily with far too great success.[27] It is already some time since the last _Lammergeier_ of the German hill districts fell a victim to it. It is thinning to frightful extent the numbers of the bears in Eastern Asia and other countries, though these are quite harmless to man. But in our Fatherland a completely organised “poison business” has grown up, which is a very serious matter.

I should like also to advocate strongly the legal prohibition of the use of pole-traps, to which all our owls and birds of prey fall victims.

If we go on as we are going, the time cannot be far distant when we shall have to strike out of the list of the living several interesting members of our native fauna. In North America, in recent times, the following species, amongst others, have some of them become extinct, others extremely scarce: the Californian grizzly bear (_Ursus horribilis californicus_), the San Joaquin Valley elk, or wapiti (_Cervus nannodes_), Stone’s reindeer (_Rangifer stonei_), the prongbuck or pronghorn (_Antilocapra americana_), the Pallas cormorant (_Phalacrocorax perspillicatus_), the Labrador duck (_Camptolaimus labradorius_), the ivory woodpecker (_Campephilus principalis_), the scotar (_Aix sponsa_), several other species of birds, and finally the American woodcock. This last falls a victim chiefly to professional hunters, who are accustomed to kill it by hundreds in its winter quarters.

“This list could perhaps be extended,” Mr. R. Rathbun, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute (whose kindness I have to thank for this information), adds at the end of his letter.

His communications have also been of special interest to me because they awoke in me old recollections. In the ‘forties of the past century my father received a letter from North America in which he was informed that on ground over which the New York of to-day extends, one could shoot in a single day hundreds of woodcock. I myself, in my young days, used to take care of a beautifully coloured parrot, of a kind that since then has been almost extirpated, and is hardly to be obtained any longer. _Connurus carolinensis_ is the name of this beautiful species of parrot, which also appears on the list of extinct animals of North America. There, too, men have begun to give strong practical expression to the movement for animal protection. In sanctuaries like Yellowstone Park there is complete protection for all animal life, including beasts of prey, and the bears have become so tame that they allow visitors to come within a few paces of them. Count E. Bernstorff, who received permission to shoot one of the few bisons still preserved in the State of Wyoming, says “One might take the way in which the animal life of America is protected as an example in securing still better preservation for the survivors of the primeval wild life of Africa. One must acknowledge that the Americans and their noble President, a brave sportsman, are now doing all that is possible in this matter.”

President Roosevelt, in fact, has come forward manfully in the lists as a champion of widely extended protection for all the beauties of nature, and especially of the animal world. He endeavours by his words and writings to work effectually for these great and noble ideas, which bring to all men delight, profit, and contentment.[28]

Brought up in the school of German sportsmanship, I had later on to change completely my view as to our distinction between “noxious animals” and “beasts of prey.” The African wilderness swarms with _beasts of prey_, and yet also swarms with _useful wild animals_. The waters of Africa teem with the _fish destroyers_, and also teem with _fish_. We should not therefore act so short-sightedly and pedantically. We should not be so eager to hunt down the last fox, the last pine-marten. The nesting-places of herons and cormorants are becoming ever fewer; the places where the handsome black tree storks build in our German Fatherland can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand; and the same is nearly true of the nesting-places of our rarer birds of prey.