REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 9 
At the next meeting of the Board of Regents on December 15, 1908, 
the following resolutions were adopted, formally recording the ac- 
ceptance of the President’s generous offer and expressing the Board’s 
appreciation of the contributions of the friends of the Institution 
which made this expedition possible: 
Resolved, That the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution express 
to Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, its appreciation of his 
very generous offer contained in his letter of the 20th of June, 1908, to the Sec- 
retary of the Institution, with respect to his expedition to Africa; and that it 
accept the same. 
Resolved, That the thanks of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian In- 
stitution be conveyed by the Secretary of the Institution to the donors who have 
so generously contributed funds to meet the expenses of the naturalists who will 
accompany Mr. Theodore Roosevelt upon his expedition to Africa, the results 
of which will be presented by the President to the Smithsonian Institution for 
the National Museum, 
The party sailed on March 23, 1909, from New York on the steamer 
Hamburg for Naples, whence steamer was taken to Mombasa, British 
East Africa. Those accompanying Mr. Roosevelt were his son Ker- 
mit and three naturalists—Lieut. Col. Edgar A. Mearns, surgeon, 
U. S. Army; Mr. Edmund Heller; and Mr. J. Alden Loring. The 
expedition arrived in Africa on April 21. 
A letter from Mr. Heller, dated at Nairobi May 31, announced the 
shipment of 20 barrels of large mammal skins in brine, comprising 
Colonel Roosevelt’s first month’s collection. The shipment consists 
of 82 specimens, as follows: Lion, 7; leopard, 1; cheetah, 1; spotted 
hyena, 1; Cape hartebeest, 14; white-bearded wildebeest, 5; Neumann 
steinbuck, 5; Kirk dik-dik, 1; common waterbuck, 3; Chanler reed- 
buck, 4; Grant gazelle, 9; Thomson gazelle, 5, impalla, 2; eland, 1; 
Cape buffalo, 4; giraffe, 3; hippopotamus, 1; wart hog, 6; Burchell 
zebra, 7; black rhinoceros, 2. While no new species, so far as is 
known, is included in this first shipment, the collection will supple- 
ment materially the specimens already in the National Museum. 
Together with this shipment are expected a large number of speci- 
mens of small mammals, and also of birds gathered by Lieut. Col. 
Mearns and J. Alden Loring, of the expedition party. 
Through the Smithsonian African expedition the National 
Zoological Park has been presented by Mr. W. W. McMillan, of 
Juja farm, near Nairobi, British East Africa, with an exceptional 
collection of live African animals. A letter from Lieut. Col. Edgar 
A. Mearns, dated May 20, states that the collection includes 11 large 
mammals and 3 large birds, all in fine condition and for the most 
part well broken to captivity, as follows: A male and female lion, 
2 years old; a male and two female lions, 17 months old; a female 
leopard, a pet of Mrs. McMillan; two cheetahs; a wart hog, 2 years 
old; one Thomson and one Grant gazelle, well grown; a large 
