In Wildest Africa -^ 



every hide, with the horns and skull belonging to it, all 

 carefully labelled, to some museum at home, and, according 

 to widely expressed opinion, he is greatly to blame tor the 

 destruction of animal life. 



Happily in recent years our colonial collections have 

 been considerably augmented. An extraordinarily large 

 quantity of material has been forwarded to the Berlin 

 Natural History Museum, amongst others, by officials, 

 private individuals, and members of the garrisons abroad. 

 Hence valuable results have been obtained for the zoology 

 of these regions. Amongst the satisfactory results of the 

 ever increasing activity in the zoological exploration ot the 

 Dark Continent are surprising and repeated discoveries of 

 unknown species of animals, such as the Okapi {Ocapia 

 johiistoni) and a black wild hog, till now completely 

 unknown {Hylochwrus nicincrtzhagcni, Oldf Thomas). 

 With the help of these collections, Professor Matschie. 

 dealing with the mammalia, and Profes.sor Reichenow with 

 the birds, have succeeded in establishing the fact that 

 each separate region of the Dark Continent posses.ses its 

 own characteristic fauna. And most important conclusi(Mis 

 with regard to the distribution of animals have thus hcxw 

 derived from these great systematic collections. My triend 

 Baron Carlo Erlanger, the well-known African traveller, 

 and the only one who has ever traversed Somaliland from 

 end to end, though unhappily cut oH by an early death, 

 was able to confirm these theories, with reference to the 

 countries he explored, by the ample collections he systema- 

 tically formed. The whole science of zoology in relation 

 to geography has been turned on to new lines of research, 



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