660 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITTJTION, 1917. 



you had done I was only too glad to assent to the recommendation, and, accord- 

 ingly, at his request detailed you to take charge of the scientific work of the 

 expedition. I know no one who could do it as well. 



The party, consisting of Colonel Eoosevelt, his son Kermit, Doctor 

 Mearns, and Messrs. Heller and Loring, jailed early in March, 1909, 

 and was absent nearly a year. It traversed sections of British East 

 Africa, where Mearns seized the opportunity to collect material on 

 the slopes of Mount Kenia up to the snow line ; Uganda, across which 

 he journeyed on foot, to enable him to make better collections and 

 observations; finally passing through the Lado Enclave, down the 

 Wliite Nile to the coast. The course of the expedition and its results 

 are matters of history, and it will suffice here to say that of the 

 upward of 4,000 birds collected, over 3,000 were obtained by Doctor 

 Mearns, who also secured many small mammals, plants, and other 

 objects. 



Upon his return to Washington, Dr. Mearns began a general re- 

 port on the birds and published several preliminary papers describ- 

 ing new forms obtained on the expedition. While thus engaged he 

 was requested by Mr. Childs Frick to undertake another African 

 journey, which was to include Abyssinia and little traveled parts of 

 eastern Africa. Although less physicallj'^ fitted to undertake difficult 

 journeys than formerly, the advantage of having more material for 

 comparison appealed to him, and he was unable to resist the tempta- 

 tion. He became a member of this expedition, and the latter part of 

 the year 1911 found him again in Africa, from which he returned in 

 September, 1912. The party entered at Djibouti, French Somaliland, 

 and traveled inland to Dire Daoua, thence to Addis Abeba, the 

 Abyssinian capital. From there it worked generally south by way of 

 the Abaya lakes, through the Galla country, making a loop round 

 Lake Stephanie and skirting the south end of Lake Rudolf, and 

 finally reached Nairobi. Part of the territory traversed was pre- 

 viously unexplored, and the liberal collections made over the whole 

 route enabled Doctor Mearns to add greatly to his knowledge of the 

 birds of eastern Africa. In April, 1912, when the expedition was in 

 a remote part of southern Abyssinia, his son, Louis Mearns, a most 

 estimable and promising young man, who had accompanied him on 

 many lesser collecting trips, died in Baltimore, Maryland, The news 

 of this sad occurrence, which was withheld b}^ his family until his 

 return to the United States, proved a severe shock to him. 



With largely increased collections — the Frick expedition having 

 added over 5,000 birds to his available material — Doctor Mearns 

 again resumed his studies, intending to work up all of the African 

 series together. He had been relieved from further active duty at the 

 end of the year 1910 and felt he could at last make his plans and 

 move as he pleased. For years he had cherished the desire to settle 



