f^^* 



hyena 



hunt 



by 



Dale J. Osborn 



Mammologist, Department of 



Medical Zoology, United States 



Navy Medical Research Unit 



Number Three. Cairo Egypt; 



Field Associate, Field Museum 



This month's cover shows 



the author and his party 



in March, 1966 



on the desolate plains of 



Umm Shilman in the 



Nubian Desert, in search of 



the hyena. 



%- 



For three years, 1964 to 1967, I ex- 

 plored the Egyptian deserts, working 

 for the Naval Medical Research Unit 

 Number Three, a group which has been 

 studying the role of animals and ecto- 

 parasites in the dissemination of human 

 and animal diseases for the past 20 years. 

 I collected mammals, plants, and what- 

 ever else might be useful to our research. 

 With a small crew of Egyptians, I lived 

 like a Bedouin for weeks at a time, 

 camping at wells or carrying precious 

 water hundreds of miles into the desert. 

 We traveled in trucks and jeeps, not 

 on camels, but our fare was often little 

 better than that of the nomads. If Allah 

 and the desert provided wood enough, 

 we sat cross-legged around campfires 

 at night reminiscing on the pleasures 

 and hardships of past journeys. To my 

 Egyptian associates, for whom hunting 

 is a favorite pastime, pursuing hyenas 

 had been particularly thrilling. I shared 

 in that excitement, of course, but to me 

 the fact that we had collected for the 

 first time a study series of hyena speci- 

 mens {Hyaena iiyaena) from Egypt was 

 of greater importance. Furthermore, 

 the expedition provided me many spe- 

 cial memories of desert people and a 

 part of Egypt that few foreigners had 

 ever seen. 



Wadi Allaqi drains from the moun- 

 tains of southeastern Egypt and north- 

 ern Sudan, westward across Nubia and 

 debouches into the Nile Valley about 

 100 miles south of Aswan. Around the 

 turn of the century Wadi Allaqi was 

 famous for an abundance of good pas- 

 ture and high quality camels. The last 

 "year of plenty" was 1907; then fol- 

 lowed a succession of dry years until the 

 1930's. The ensuing years of drought 

 brought drastic changes; however, re- 

 ports of local rains in 1 965 suggested a 

 favorable climatic cycle had come again. 

 With hopes of seeing the desert "bloom- 

 ing" we decided to explore Wadi Allaqi. 



