-^ Introduction 



Herr Schillings' observations on the habits of the birds 

 and beasts he mentions and illustrates. With Herr 

 Schillings it is an illustration of the old nursery story 

 of Eyes and No Jiycs. It gives one somewhat of a 

 feeling of shame to think that this quite young man 

 .should in some seven years have learnt and recorded 

 more that was true and new about the wild life of East 

 Africa than has been accomplished by officials, traders, 

 and explorers, both German and British, of twenty, 

 ■fifteen, and ten years' actjuaintance with this part of 

 Africa. His book is a real " Natural History," in the 

 true sense of the words. 



What we require nowadays is the work of the 

 biologist, the anatomist who can examine and describe 

 niinutely and accurately the physical characteristics of 

 living forms. Then, in addition, we want the natural 

 historian, the individual who can as taithtully and 

 minutely record the lite-habits of the same creatures — 

 a study quite as im})ortant as that of their anatomy, 

 and a study in which there is an enormous leeway to 

 make up. As Herr Schillings points out, until, say, ten 

 years ago, there was a great inaccuracy and sparsity in 

 the information given (very often copied by one author 

 from another) of the lifediabits of wild beasts and birds 

 in Africa. Either these were not thought worth studying, 

 or the writer, the explorer, deemed it sufficient to repeat 

 stories told him l)y the natives, or rash conclusions at 

 which he had himself arrived after very little evidence. 

 It is interesting to listen to all that natives can record 

 of the habits of birds and beasts ; and yet, although 



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