A TAXIDERMIST AS A SCULPTOR 179 
mounted elephants now in the American Museum of 
Natural History. Many others can be told in small 
bronzes. I want to tell these stories, and in the time 
I have on earth I could not record many elephant 
stories in taxidermy, for one group really done well 
takes years—but I can tell these stories in bronze. » 
After The Wounded Comrade had made a success, 
many of my friends came to my studio (where I did 
taxidermy) in the Museum and advised me to keep on 
making bronzes. ‘‘Here’s your opportunity,” they 
said. ‘‘You have a market. Fortune favours you. 
Don’t neglect the fickle lady.” 
But I did not follow this advice and make many 
bronzes. It may have been because I was lazy or 
busy with other things, but I like to think that it 
was because I had decided not to make bronzes 
unless I had a real story to tell. I wanted to do 
justice if I could to my friend, the elephant. And, 
also, I wanted to do what I did well enough to prove 
that a taxidermist could be, as he ought to be, an 
artist. 
So I progressed with sculpture very slowly. In 
the nine years since The Wounded Comrade was made 
I have made only six bronzes. 
In my second piece I have pictured a scene that will 
always remain very vivid in my memory—a charging 
herd. I had been following a large herd of elephants, 
two hundred or more, in the Budongo Forest for two 
days. They had broken up into small bands and 
the particular band which I was following had got 
near the edge of the forest. Nevertheless, I was 
