

90 



HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 



TRAVELLERS. 



I have no information to give concerning the 

 youngest two African travellers lately in this busi- 

 ness. I refer to Reuben Castang and Charlie 

 Judge who went to Old Calabar. I trust all is 

 well with these two young men. 



"HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE!" 



is now entering in its Sixth Year. It deserves 

 support. It cannot, however, only live by sub- 

 scriptions. If it pleases the Irish it should give 

 satisfaction to you, gentle reader. 



Pass this copy on to your friends, thereby 

 assisting the circulation and adding to the happi- 

 ness of 



JOHN D. HAMLYN. 



The Late Sir Edmund Loder. 



By Mr. W. P. Pycraft. 



From "The Illustrated London News." 



With the death of Sir Edmund Loder there 

 passed from among us a great Englishman. He 

 will be reckoned among those who "were hon- 

 oured in their generations and were the glory of 

 their times." Science, the world of sport, and the 

 country-side have all been enriched by him, and 

 all have sustained a loss that will not be easily 

 measured. He was a brilliant scholar, yet with- 

 out pedantry,, while his interests in Natural 

 Science were unusually wide, ranging as they 

 did from astronomy to gardening. He was no 

 mean artist, and in his small but choice collection 

 of Chinese porcelain and glass he gave proofs of 

 his fine discrimination in regard to things beauti- 

 ful. Both mentally and physically he stood a 

 giant among his fellows. As a young man he 

 was a great athlete. He was also a fine shot with 

 the rifle, achieving distinction as a member of 

 the Tnglish Eight at Wimbledon and Bisley. 



As a big-game hunter he held an enviable 

 record. His first trip was made in 1871, when he 

 went to India and Kashmere, returning with fine 

 specimens of tiger, black-buck, ibex, nilghai, sam- 

 hur, and barasingha. He next went to' Western 

 America, and was in time to* secure to> his own 

 gun some splendid examples of the fast disappear- 

 ing bison. But it was in Africa that the greater 

 part ofhis hunting was done. Here he secured 

 for his Museum a fine series of all the larger 

 African mammalsi. Though he made but one 

 short trip to> the Sahara,, he secured the first speci- 

 men of a small gazelle which, though known, had 



never previously been obtained by a European. 

 This is now: known as " Loder's gazelle" (Gazella 

 loderi). The Algerian mountains, Somaliland, and 

 East Africa were each in turn laid under tribute, 

 and the spoils — elephant, rhinoceros, hippopota- 

 mus, antelope, Hon, and a host of other creatures 

 great and small, were brought back for his be- 

 loved Museum, which contains one of the finest 

 private collections of horned animals in the world. 



These were, perhaps, its chief glory. But, 

 -besides, it included some notable cetacean speci- 

 mens; riumberless treasures in the way of the 

 smaller mammals and skeletons. Even, more than 

 his Museum, perhaps, he loved his garden, which 

 was a veritable Paradise. I shall never forget the 

 wonderful week-end I spent there in the autumn 

 of 1918. Gardeners and tree-lovers from all 



parts of the country made pilgrimages toi Leo- 

 nardslee to see his wonderful collection of coni- 

 fers and rhododendrons, which was unique; and 

 the surpassingly Jbeautiful rock-garden, which, by 

 the way, formed the model on which that at Kew 

 was fashioned. 



Perhaps the crowning joy of his huge garden 

 was his collection of rhododendrons, which, grow- 

 ing in natural groups in the woods, numbered 

 thousands. By crossing R. Grifnithiarium with 

 R. Fortunei he produced R. Loderi, a plant, his 

 friend Commander Millais tells us, "of such size 

 and magnificence that it is not too> much to< say 

 that it is the finest hardy flowering shrub in 

 northern climes. Many of the flowers are 6| in. 

 across, and the whole truss 31 in. in circumfer- 

 ence. " 



But Leonardslee was famous not only for its 

 rock-garden and its trees, but also for the strange 

 and v\ onderful animals kept there. At the bottom 

 of a deep valley which ran through the estate 

 was a small stream, and a part of this was re- 

 served for a colony of beavers. Sir Edmund and 

 I made our way down to> the beaver-pool late one 

 afternoon to sit and watch its inhabitants; and it 

 was a fascinating watch we kept, straining our 

 eyes till we could no longer see clearly what was 

 going on. Coypus, the large rodent which fur- 

 nishes the fur known as "Nutria," and the huge 

 Capybara, also* lived here, while in a paddock one 

 could study kangaroos in practically a wild state. 

 But, to my thinking, the most wonderful of all the 

 animals were the Pacas — small, long-legged ro- 

 dents which, when running, looked as though they 

 were mechanical toys moving by clockwork ! 



He kept nothing merely for show purposes, 

 but alt for study. And a right good use he made 

 of his collections. He displayed a really wonder- 

 ful knowledge both of his plants and animals. 

 Yet he wrote but little. Many valuable papers 

 he contributed to the Proceedings of the Zoologi- 



