il4 THE ORIGIN OF THE ROOSEVELT EXPEDITION. 



siastic collector, as well as a well equipped Naturalist. He is also 

 author of Scientific papers on Mammals, Birds, Reptiles and Fishes. 

 When he started with Col. Roosevelt's expedition he was assistant 

 curator of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University of 

 California. 



J. Alden Loring was a field naturalist, whose training comprises 

 service in the biological survey of the Department of Agriculture 

 and in the Bronx Zoological Park, New York City, as well as on 

 numerous collecting trips through British America, Mexico and 

 the United States. 



He was of ardent temperament, and intensely energetic. In 

 August, September and October, 1898, he made the highest record 

 for a traveling collector, having sent in to the United States National 

 Museum 900 w^ell prepared specimens of small mammals in the three 

 months' journey from London through Sweden, Germany, Sw^itzer- 

 land and Belgium. 



WHERE ROOSEVELT HUNTED ^VILD ANIMALS. 



Major Edgar A. Mearns, a retired officer of the Medical Corps 

 of the Army, was the physician of the trip and had charge of the 

 Smithsonian portion of the party. He had twenty-five years' exper- 

 ience as an army doctor, and is also well known as a naturalist and 

 collector of natural history specimens. 



The party reached Mombasa in April. The general route was 

 up the Uganda Railway to Nairobi and Lake Victoria Nyanza, a 

 distance of about 650 miles by rail, thence crossing into Uganda, 

 and, finally, passing down the Nile to Cairo. Much of the hunting- 

 was done in British East Africa, where the Uganda Railroad was 

 used as a base of supplies and means of ready transportation. The 

 expedition spent about one year on African soil. 



British East Africa lies directly south of Abyssinia, is bounded 

 on the east by the Italian Somaliland and the Indian Ocean. It has 

 about 300 miles of coast. It includes the East African Protectorate 

 and the Uganda Protectorate, and is immediately controlled by the 

 foreign office. 



The equator runs through the southern end of the possessions, 



