THE SEMLIKI VALLEY AN]) COXGO EOllEST 205 



there is no part of Africa more deserving of careful research at the hands 

 of scientific men. I am sm*e that this north-eastern portion of the Congo 

 Poorest contains many strange or little-known mammals, birds, and insects. 

 Besides the okapi (a complete skin and two skulls of which were procured 

 for us bv the ^lanyema soldiers, and despatched to me after my departm^e 

 by Mr. Karl Eriksson), we obtained the skin of a remarkable new genet-eat. 

 This I took at the time to be a civet, as it was so large as to be almost the 

 size of the big African civet-cat, but it turns out on examination to be a large 

 new species of genet. It was named by ^Ir. Oldfield Thomas Genetta 



l66. THE SEMLIKI IN THE GKASS-L.\.^■I)^^ IMMEDIATELY SOUTH OF LAKE ALBERT NTANZA 



victorice. This genet was obtained from a very dense part of the forest. 

 In painting my study of this animal I have availed myself in part of 

 the drawing made from the skin by Mr. .Smit for the Zoological Society. 

 The background should give some idea of the dense leafage of the forest. 



Farther away from the Semliki than we penetrated I am told by the 

 Belgians that the excessive undergrowth which produced such a stifling 

 atmosphere thins away, and the traveller can walk with a reasonable 

 degree of comfort between the mighty trunks of the colossal trees, whose 

 foliage at a height of 200 feet above the ground almost completely 

 shuts out the sky. This is said to be the region more favoured by the 

 okapi than the districts of dense undergrowth. In the depths of these 



