2l6 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



lie feeling against its unneeessary destruction. In particular, the 

 society organized special missions by Major R. W. G. Kingston to 

 the East African colonies in 1930, and by Colonel A. H. W. Hay- 

 wood to the West African colonies in 1932 to investigate the most 

 suitable methods of ensuring the conservation of the indigenous 

 fauna. Contributions bearing on these questions are published 

 quarterly in the society's journal. 



Several of the British Universities have taken some interest in 

 African zoology, and research expeditions arranged under their 

 auspices have visited parts of Africa. At Oxford, there is the Bureau 

 of Animal Population under Mr. Charles Elton, which is one of the 

 few centres in Europe for the study of this branch of animal 

 ecology (see page 226). 



South Africa has recently seen the development of museums and 

 universities to such a degree that in some respects it is becoming 

 independent of central institutions in Great Britain in so far as 

 systematic zoology is concerned. It is no longer necessary, for 

 example, to send any vertebrate animal to Europe for identifica- 

 tion, since there are specialists in each of the component groups of 

 animals at one or other of the South African museums. 



There are four national museums: the South African Museum 

 at Capetown, the Natal Museum at Pietermaritzburg, which is 

 one of the most important as a centre of zoological research and 

 which publishes the well-known Annals of the Natal Museum, the 

 Transvaal Museum at Pretoria, which has likewise made impor- 

 tant contributions to systematic research, field surveys and applied 

 zoology, and the National Museum at Bloemfontein, which is par- 

 ticularly rich in palaeontological material. There are four provin- 

 cial museums: the Albany Museum at Grahamstown, the Mc- 

 Gregor Museum at Kimberley, the Kaffrarian Museum at King 

 William's Town, the Port Elizabeth Museum, and a fifth, the 

 Provincial Museum at East London, was started recently. Of these 

 the Kaffrarian Museum is notable in containing the largest study 

 collection of African mammals in the Union, and Captain Short- 

 ridge, the Director, has recently published (1934) an exhaustive 

 book on the mammals of South- West Africa; he is extending his 

 studies to Southern Rhodesia. The McGregor Museum has the 

 best arranged collection of geological and ethnological material, 



