THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 



J.X<-j* 



Map of the Uganda .Railway, British East Africa. Total length from Mombasa on 

 the Indian Ocean to Port Florence on Lake Victoria Nyanza, 581 miles 



This region, this great fragment out of the long-buried 

 past of our race, is now accessible by railroad to all who 

 care to go thither; and no field more inviting offers itself 

 to hunter or naturalist, while even to the ordinary traveller 

 it teems with interest. On March 23, 1909, I sailed thither 

 from New York, in charge of a scientific expedition sent 

 out by the Smithsonian, to collect birds, mammals, reptiles, 

 and plants, but especially specimens of big game, for the 

 National Museum at Washington. In addition to myself 

 and my son Kermit (who had entered Harvard a few 

 months previously), the party consisted of three naturalists: 

 Surgeon-Lieut. Col. Edgar A. Mearns, U.S.A., retired; Mr. 

 Edmund Heller, of California, and Mr. J. Alden Loring, 

 of Owego, N. Y. My arrangements for the trip had been 

 chiefly made through two valued English friends, Mr. 

 Frederick Courteney Selous, the greatest of the world's 

 big-game hunters, and Mr. Edward North Buxton, also a 

 mighty hunter. On landing we were to be met by Messrs. 

 R. J. Cuninghame and Leslie Tarlton, both famous hunt- 



