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.
[Illustration: YOUNG GRANT’S GAZELLES ON A BLACK-BURNED STRETCH OF
VELT.]
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!
[Illustration: GROUP OF ’MBEGA MONKEYS, WITH THEIR WHITE-COATED YOUNG
(FIRST DISCOVERED BY THE AUTHOR).]
[Illustration: LETTER FROM PROFESSOR P. MATSCHIE, THE LEADING AUTHORITY
ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE MAMMALIA OF GERMAN EAST AFRICA.]
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.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A ‘MBEGA (_COLOBUS CAUDATUS_, Thos.)]
[Illustration:
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.
[Illustration: MODERN METHODS OF TAXIDERMY: SETTING UP.]
[Illustration: ONE OF MY SPECIMENS IN THE MUNICH MUSEUM.]
[Illustration: THE COMPLETED SPECIMEN IN THE MUNICH MUSEUM (_GIRAFFA
SCHILLINGSI_, Mtsch.).]
[Illustration: ANOTHER OF MY SPECIMENS IN THE STUTTGART MUSEUM.]
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.
[Illustration:
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.
[Illustration: DWARF ANTELOPE IN THE CARLSRUHE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM.]
[Illustration:
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.]
[Illustration:
GROUP, ALSO PREPARED BY BANZER, SHOWING A SNOW-WHITE
“BLACK-HOOFED” ANTELOPE, ATTACKED BY A BLACK SERVAL AND TWO
OTHERS.]
[Illustration:
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.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
DWARF MUSK DEER, (_NESOTRAGUS MOSCHATUS_ VAN DUBEN) FROM THE
AUTHOR’S COLLECTION IN THE BERLIN NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM.]
[Illustration:
_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.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
BLACK-HOOFED ANTELOPE IN THE CARLSRUHE MUSEUM.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
GIRAFFE GAZELLE AND DWARF ANTELOPE IN THE CARLSRUHE MUSEUM.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
HEAD OF AN AFRICAN WART-HOG SHOT BY THE AUTHOR.]
[Illustration:
_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.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
DRYING ORNITHOLOGICAL SPECIMENS FOR MY COLLECTION.
[Illustration:
_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.]
[Illustration:
_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.
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN GEESE IN A SWAMP.]
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.