viii PREFACE. 



producing this work in a completed form it must grow. 

 It is to be borne in mind that many trophies which have 

 passed through my hands are now scattered all over the 

 world, and the dimensions of them, for the time, are not 

 recorded here. Some that I give now are fine measure- 

 ments, some are only ordinary statistics, many are of new 

 species altogether ; these last being mainly a result of the 

 quite recent opening up of Africa. The advice noted as 

 to the way to measure must be dealt with strictly, for 

 many persons measuring by different methods produce 

 untrustworthy record. We have tried to be fair in pro- 

 ducing the statistics, taking them rather under than over the 

 mark ; and the tape has not been pressed into corrugations, 

 but carried outside, over all inequalities. 



Many gentlemen's trophies I should like to have mea- 

 sured, but those specimens have either changed hands or 

 are now in some remote part of the world, and the book 

 cannot be delayed longer ; but distance has not prevented 

 me from obtaining many important statistics. 



R. W. 



