'»> Catching- a Young- Rhinoceros 



on which I had gone into the Interior with my own 

 caravan. I am reliably informed that the so-called Ostrich 

 Farming Company at Kilimanjaro has lost fourteen young- 

 rhinos through not knowino- how to brini^ them up. The 

 Uganda railway now affords facilities for the transport 

 of heavy animals to the coast, but so far has not been 

 the means of enriching our Zoological Gardens. 



Clearly there must be some good reason for this state 

 of things. The explanation lies in the great difficulty, 

 first of all, in catching the young rhinoceros, and secondly, 

 in the difficulty of providing milk for him, owing to the 

 lack of horned cattle, when he has to be transported from 

 one spot to another. Partly from the same cause it has 

 not been possible to bring home alive to Europe a number 

 of other splendid animals met with in East Africa. No 

 elephant, no giraffe, no eland or oryx or roan antelope, 

 no specimen of the beautiful Grant's gazelle, or impalla, 

 or waterbuck, or hartebeest, or kudu — not to mention 

 many other of the smaller inhabitants of the country — 

 has yet been conveyed home to any ot the German 

 Zoological Gardens. 



This is due to the unfavourable conditions, climatic 

 and otherwise, under which one has to work. 



No systematic importation of living animals to Europe 

 has yet been managed from either German East Africa 

 or German South or West Africa. This has been carried 

 out in the case of Somaliland — a country unmatched 

 for its salubrity, where camels and horses thrive — through 

 the initiative of the well-known dealer, Menges, but in 

 these colonies of ours it has never been set about properly. 



247 



