ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



GREVY ZEBRAS AND GIRAFFES 

 ew from "The Little Back Room in Noah's Ark" 



try — tlif thermometer on occasions registerinsj; 

 in tlie neifiliborhood of 1 30 degrees — the mem- 

 hers of tlie expedition, well satisfied with their 

 work, started south, and skirting the footiiills 

 of .Mount Kenia. sjjent another month or so on 

 the well-known luuiting grounds of the Athi 

 Plains and the Thika and Tana Rivers. 



In his forthcoming book "Through Central 

 .Vfriea From Coast to Coast" (Appleton), Mr. 

 Barnes in referring to the journey to 'Picture 

 Land,' as he calls it, writes as follows : 



"The elephants, to our great mortification, 

 only came down at night. We could see them 

 in the faint light, moving sometimes within less 

 than a hundred yards from our little back room 

 in Noah's Ark. They screamed and trumiieted, 

 i)lowing sand and water over their huge bodies, 

 but only once did one linger long enough for us 

 to get a good sight of him by daylight. He was 

 a huge lone bull with small tusks, and as it was 

 the first wild elephant that I had clearly seen 

 I compared him with my recollection of the 

 famous Jumbo, and Jumbo suffered by compari- 



siui. It is not always the largest elephant that 

 carries the heaviest ivory, and I doubt if this 

 big bull's tusks would have gone over thirty or 

 thirty-five pounds. 



"It was early dawn when we discovered him, 

 wandering about the sandy river bed, and very 

 cautiously, with cameras ready, we began to 

 stalk him. I do not doubt but that we could 

 have secured some pictures had it not been for 

 the irritating habits of the baboons, whose dif- 

 ferent colonies in the neighborhood would have 

 made a population of thousands. Whether they 

 had made a compact with the elephant to play 

 sentry for him we never could determine, but 

 at a single bark from a watchful old female 

 baboon who was observing us from a tree-top, 

 he was off, ears spread out like spinnakers. Hav- 

 ing been thus disclosed, we started after him 

 hot foot, but as he easily went eight miles to our 

 five, we were soon distanced and gave it up. 



"He must have been a rampageous old fellow 

 ])ossessed of great strength and a vile temper, 

 for he had needlessly wrecked the scenery, over- 



