54 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



rifle stopped the leader, but encouraged by the others she came on, only to 

 be knocked down by the second shot. The others crowded about her, 

 sniffed and — bolted. The old cow slowly regained her feet and staggered 

 away while we in deep gratitude returned to camp. 



It was in August, 1909, that we left New York commissioned by the 

 American Museum of Natural History to secure specimens for a group of 

 African elephants. We began serious work on the Uasin Gishu Plateau 

 knowing that there we should be able to secure the smaller specimens, cow 

 and young elephants, and we had reason to hope that a large bull might 

 be found on the plateau or in the forests of Mount Elgon, for in former days 

 great numbers had inhabited the rich feeding grounds of the Elgon forest as 

 evidenced by the old pits (traps), scarred trees and decaying bones. We 

 inspected more than a hundred elephants however, without finding a trace 

 of a single large specimen. Soon after reaching the plateau we met Colonel 

 Roosevelt and party, with whom we made a short but successful elephant 

 hunt, the result of which was two cows shot by Colonel Roosevelt and one 

 calf shot by Kermit Roosevelt. Later a young bull shot by John T. 

 McCutcheon of our party was preserved. 



We journeyed to the summit of Mount Elgon from the south and down 

 to the east without finding the least recent trace of elephants until we had 

 returned to the bush country of the plateau. Then we proceeded to Uganda, 

 secured porters at Entebbe, marched along the Hoima Road to the Kafu 

 River, down the Kafu to where the old Masinde-Kampala Road crosses it, 

 then to Masinde, seeing no elephants during the two weeks' journey. We 

 then devoted a month to hunting in the region of the Victoria Nile between 

 Masinde and Foweira. This is a region of big elephants where many 

 splendid tuskers have been taken in the past, but really good ones are now 

 very rare. On this occasion we shot two bulls enormous in size but with 

 tusks weighing only from seventy-five to eighty pounds each. 



About the middle of April as I was suffering from physical disabilities 

 that made the preparatioii of an elephant skin impossible, we decided to 



return to the Uasin Gishu 

 Plateau where in the more 

 healthful highlands I might 

 hope for recovery. Though 

 the rains were on at this 

 time we found no elephants 

 on thv plateau, so we de- 

 voted twenty days to lion- 

 hunting with a party of 

 Nandi warriors for the 

 purpose of making motion 

 picture records of the spec- 



A few yoar.s ago great hords were to be lounrl in the 

 forests or Mount Elgon but they have either been killed 

 or have; deserted bt^eause so harried by ivory hunters 



