NEWS BULLETIN OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



the Flying Cage, then swings around the side 

 of the hill to the northwest corner of the Bird- 

 House Terrace. About midway of its length, 

 a turf pathway leads off southward about 400 

 feet to the Lookout Rock, from which three 

 deer ranges are in full view — Mule Deer, Co- 

 lumbian Black-Tail, and White-Tail. 



The construction of this fine improvement 

 has been carried out by the temporary force of 

 the Park, under the direction of Mr. Samuel 

 P. Senior, Chief Constructor. Tlie work is 

 Telford macadam, thoroughly drained both 

 above ground and below, and it is a safe pre- 

 diction that the harder it rains, the better will 

 be the surface of Osborn's Walk. 



AN IMPORTANT ZOOLOGICAL 

 DISCOVERY 



The London Times is authority for a very 

 circumstantial account of the discovery of a 

 new animal in Central Africa which must rank 

 as one of the zoological wonders of recent 

 years. Inasmuch as a complete skin and two 

 skulls have reached the British Museum, there 

 is not even one peg on which to hang a doubt. 



The animal is the size of an ox, and although 

 the Belgian officers in the interior of the Congo 

 Free State " described the animal as a kind of 

 zebra," the Times writer declares that it ap- 



pears to be a living representative of the Hella- 

 dotherium, an extinct creature found in a fossil 

 state in Greece and Asia Minor, and thought 

 to be related to the giraffe. The native name 

 of the new animal is okapi. Its home is that 

 portion of the great equatorial forest which 

 lies immediately westward of Lakes Albert 

 Nyanza and Albert Edward Nyanza, or about 

 from 28° to 30° East Longitude, and from the 

 Equator to perhaps the 2d parallel of North 

 Latitude. This is the eastern extremity of the 

 Congo Free State, and also the home of the 

 dwarfs. It was a Swedish officer named K. 

 Eriksson, Commandant of Fort Mbeni, who 

 had the enterprise to collect and forward to Sir 

 Harry Johnston, for the British Museum, the 

 specimens described, and we can imagine the 

 feelings of Mr. Oldfield Thomas and Dr. P. L. 

 Sclater when that gorgeously colored skin first 

 reached their hands. Just why the Belgian 

 officers of the Congo Free State who told Sir 

 Harry Johnston about the animal never took 

 the trouble to send a skin of it to the Brussels 

 Museum, the naturalists of Belgium will now 

 desire to know. They even showed Sir Harry 

 pieces of skin from the okapi, and explained 

 that the animal lives in pairs, in the dense for- 

 est, is rather easily taken, and is much sought 

 after by the native soldiers, both for its gaudily 

 colored skin and its flesh. Incidentally it is 

 remarked that the animal is in danger of being 



WILD CANADA GEESE. 

 A pair from the visiting flock. The female on her nest is carefully guarded by her mate. 



