January 6, 1910] 



NA TURE 



283 



valent wind is from the south. The evidence avail- 

 able suggests that, if the South Polar anticyclone 

 exist, if is either less extensive than was thought, or 

 its centre is in the area between the South Pole and 

 the southern Atlantic. 



The appendix on the zoological results gives many 

 interesting particulars as to the habits of the penguins 

 and seals. Mr. Murray is an expert on the rotifers 

 and tardigrades, of which he found a rich fauna in 

 lakelets near the winter quarters. They are_ only 

 thawed occasionally in the summer, and live in ice 

 through most of the year. They were subjected to 

 various experiments to test their resistance to low 

 temperatures and ultra-saline waters, and they 

 triumphantly survived. Mr. Murray discusses the geo- 

 graphical relations of this fauna, and concludes from 

 the poverty in species, and their wide distribution, that 

 it is due to modern immigration. Mr. Murray col- 

 lected many marine animals from what he describes as 

 the living carpet covering the sea-floor in McMurdo 

 Sound. 



The lakes also contain a rich growth of fungus, 

 which Prof. I^vid describes as giving rise to beds of 

 peat. It is tnerefore possible that coaly 

 material mav be formed in the ."Xntarctic 

 area even under existing conditions. The 

 fossil conifer found by Shackleton shows 

 that .'\ntarctica once had a milder 

 climate than at present, a fact already 

 established by the work of Swedish ex- 

 peditions, and only natural as a correla- 

 tive of the warmer conditions that once 

 prevailed in Greenland and Spitsbergen. 

 J. W. Gregory. 



GAME PRESERVES IN BRITISH 



EAST AFRICA.^ 

 pOLONEL PATTERSON is already 

 ^ well known to the British reading 

 public by his remarkably interesting book 

 on his destruction of the man-eating lions 

 which infested the eastern section of the 

 Uganda Railway during its construction 

 and first years of activity. He returned 

 to East Africa in 1907, but whether as a 

 Government servant or as a private 

 traveller is not clearly stated in the book 

 under review (which it may at once be 

 said is exceedingly interesting to a wide 

 circle of readers — those who love thrilling 

 adventures, those whose chief interest is in sport, 

 and to students of the East African mammalia). 

 Whether he was all the time or not on Government 

 business, he had not been long back in East Africa 

 before he was requested to undertake an important 

 mission to the little-known north of the Protectorate 

 across the Guaso Nyiro, there to report on the most 

 suitable frontier to be fixed as the eastern limit of the 

 great Northern Game Reserve. 



Seeing the risky and important nature of this 

 journey, the need to avoid any unnecessary respon- 

 sibility and cause for anxiety, and, if need be, to travel 

 light and with swiftness, it was (as the author half 

 admits) unwise to have allowed two friends (an 

 English sportsman and his wife) to accompany him 

 into such a remote and possibly dangerous part. 

 However, they went ; the friend was killed by a re- 

 volver accident, and the author of the book was faced 

 with the dilemma as to whether he should imme- 

 diately escort the widow back to civilisation, some 

 three hundred miles away, or complete his survey 



1 "In the Grip of the Nyika : Further Adventures in British East Africa." 

 By Lieut.-Col. J. H. Patterson, D.S O. Pp. XV+3S9. (London : Macmillan 

 and Co., Ltd., 1909.) Price 7s. ^d. net. 



(another fifty miles) and then return. He very sensibly 

 adopted the last course. It should be mentioned that 

 the lady with whom circumstances obliged him to 

 travel showed herself a brave woman and an excellent 

 rifle shot. She faced elephants, lions, rhinoceroses 

 and buffalo, sickness of herself and others, mutinous 

 followers, with equal courage and coolness. But it 

 is, of course, a commonplace by now to point out 

 that in the hardships of exploration and the dangers 

 of big-game shooting, British women, some Ameri- 

 cans, and a few French and German women, are 

 quite on a par with the men of their race. 



One can admire their pluck, but at the same time 

 regret that it should be thrown away on often un- 

 necessary dangers in attacking wild animals far too 

 interesting to be killed. But apparently the men and 

 women of the Caucasian subspecies will not rest con- 

 tent until every big beast and every bird of remarkable 

 plumage is exterminated. 



Colonel Patterson does not tell us (so far as we can 

 gather) what recommendation he made as to the de- 

 finition of the eastern boundaries of this Northern 

 Game Reserve ; he hints, however, in one place, that 



NO. 2097, VOL. 82] 



Fig. I.— Camels crossiog the Kaisoot Desert. Fro n " In the Grip of the Nyika.' 



its area is unwieldy (which is quite true), and that 

 as it stands it is far too large to be properly super- 

 vised. The whole question, it is to be feared, is purely 

 academic in the British Empire. Large or small as 

 the game reserve may be, the native peasant or the 

 nomad hunter takes leave, the Royal or distinguished 

 visitor is granted leave, and somehow the shooting 

 goes on. Abyssinians, Somalis, Arabs, and even 

 Goanese traders, adventurers, or bandits, enter this 

 Northern Game Reserve and defy the law to stop 

 them or punish them, and it is said the Boer settlers 

 of the western part of the Protectorate are doing the 

 same. 



The history of the East Africa Protectorate will, no 

 doubt, be very like the history of Cape Colony and 

 the Orange State : the big game will be nearly all 

 killed out, not within the next ten, but certainly 

 within the next fifty years. For it occupies land which 

 in many parts is really well adapted for human occu- 

 pation (with all the appliances we now possess for 

 turning the tropics to account). The only way to 

 preserve the game to a reasonable degree in selected 

 parts of Africa will be to convince ourselves that these 

 "useless" beasts are worth preserving for their 



