In Wildest Africa ^ 



matters. Our zoological gardens and museums are already 

 doing their best, but they are hampered by the want of 

 pecuniary resources. Whilst the largest sums are freely 

 provided for the purchase of antiquities, there is a dearth 

 of means for doing what is necessary to save the treasures 

 of our vanishing fauna while there is still time ! 



Other countries, America for instance, set us a glorious 

 example. There you see public collections formed, afford- 

 ing panoramas of animal life so splendid, so beautiful, and 

 planned on such grand lines, that the love of nature must 

 be lighted up in the hearts of all who visit them. 



What can be saved of these disappearing treasures must 

 suffice for all time, and must in part at least be preserved 

 in fire and thief-proof " zoological treasuries," for it will be 

 impossible to obtain such things again in the future, no 

 matter what efforts may be made. Thus a great and 

 difficult task presents itself to our museums. We can 

 rightly require of them that they shall not merely exhibit 

 the principal species of the animal world, but that they 

 shall also preserve specimens of the most striking repre- 

 sentatives of our still surviving fauna that are likely soon 

 to become extinct. And these specimens must be guarded 

 by all the resources of art and science against light and 

 any other influence that might injure them. For such a 

 far-seeing policy posterity will be grateful to us. 



It seems, however, as though some unlucky star presided 

 over the collecting of the larger species of the animal world. 

 Let any one devote himself to these special pursuits and 

 objects, and even if he win thereby the approval of experts 

 and of wide circles of the public, still a certain odium will 



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