ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



This confident pose do 



AWAITING THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S PLEASURE 



.1 reveal the ambling gait, for the Okapi, like the gi] 



legs of one side simultaneously. 



its restricted range does not depend upon phry- 

 nium or any other plant. In fact, the flora of 

 the West African rain forest is so uniform over 

 its entire extent that it could hardly influence 

 the distribution of so large a ruminant. Our 

 long experience and numerous inquiries prompt 

 us to say that the range of the Okapi is limited 

 by physiographical conditions; any extended 

 swampy area, with its inextricable vegetation, 

 would completely bar the Okapi, and thus we 

 find it only in t:.e undulating drier portions of 

 the northeastern rain forest. 



The question how it happens that so large an 

 animal so long escaped discovery by science is 

 easily answered. While it is true that explora- 

 tion and civilization made such rapid advance 

 that the term "dark continent" practically be- 

 came obsolete during the last decade of the 

 nineteenth century, the Okapi, in true hermit 

 fashion, had secured the only retreat that white 

 men would respect, a country that he was 

 forced to acknowledge as the most unhealthy 



in the world. It inhabits a narrow strip some 

 seven hundred miles long and hardly one hun- 

 dred and forty miles wide, about seven hundred 

 miles from either coast, the forests of the hilly 

 sections of the many small affluents of the north- 

 eastern tributaries of the Congo River. The 

 only region where it has yet been recorded is in 

 the Belgian Congo, west of the Ruwenzori, 

 across a portion of the Ituri and Uele districts 

 to the Ubangi River, though it has been main- 

 tained that it occurs also in Uganda. While the 

 Okapi was not unknown to the officers of the 

 Congo Free State at the posts in the Ituri and 

 Uele. they had more vital interests than studies 

 in natural history. Communications with other 

 posts and Europe were in a precarious condi- 

 tion. They had to battle with hostile natives 

 whom they forced to abolish cannibalism. Sta- 

 tions had to be built and roads cleared through 

 tropical forest. They endeavored to establish 

 a feeling of general security. Even the wild, 

 roving Pygmies learned to exchange the prod- 



