to do and that was to go down to Argentina and study the collections 

 at Buenos Aires and La Plata, especially the "types," the specimens to 

 which the names had been originally given. This was an ambitious and 

 expensive undertaking, and, once again, I had to call on my friends to 

 help me finance it. 



At the suggestion of Dr. C. Hart Merriam, I bought a camera, for 

 photographs of the type-specimens would be much more useful than 

 descriptions. At that time much the quickest and best route to Argentina 

 was by way of Southampton and I sailed to Antwerp on May 29, made 

 my business round of Stuttgart and Frankfort, stopping, of course, 

 at Heidelberg. In London, I made arrangements for instruction in 

 photography from a professional who was very much bored with me, 

 for I had to come to him after business hours, when he wanted to knock 

 off work. Though the teacher was indifferent and rather cross, I learned 

 enough to accomplish an immense amount of indispensable work in 

 Argentina and I also bought a complete equipment for developing and 

 printing, not a very costly affair. 



When I was in London, I attended a meeting of the Zoological So- 

 ciety, when Sir Harry Johnston, the creator of Uganda, was present and 

 gave an account of that most extraordinary beast, the Okapi, which he 

 had lately brought to light from the Congo forests. Every one was 

 astonished to learn that so large an animal could have escaped discovery 

 so long. It was a curious coincidence that, when I returned from South 

 America the following November and remained only forty-eight hours 

 in London, I should have happened on another meeting of the Zoologi- 

 cal Society, at which the whole mystery of the Okapi was revealed. The 

 complete skin and skeleton of the extraordinary creature had been se- 

 cured and, as Oldfield Thomas said of it, it was more like a beast out 

 of a fairy book than a real live animal from Equatorial Africa. 



By another lucky chance, Seiior Moreno, director of the La Plata 

 museum, was in London, and, at the urgent advice of Smith Wood- 

 ward, I called upon him and explained the nature of my errand to 

 Argentina. His reception of me was most cordial and he promised me 

 a lot of letters to the various officials of his staff, which would ensure 

 me a profitable visit. Not only was Senor Moreno's presence in London 

 a fortunate circumstance for me, but his absence from La Plata was no 

 less so. To explain this surprising statement I must sketch the carte du 

 pays paUontologique of Argentina, which was amusingly like our own, 

 as Cope used to say with a laugh. Burmeister, head of the National 

 Museum at Buenos Aires, was. Cope said, the equivalent of Leidy, 



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