318 
TO THE UASIN GISHU [ch. xii 
dying beast at close quarters, and killed it just as it was 
gathering itself to spring at him. 
Thence they went to Nakuru, where Kermit killed 
two Neuman’s hartebeest. They were scarce and wild, 
and Kermit obtained his two animals by long shots, 
after following them for hours—following them until, 
as he expressed it, they got used to him, became a little 
less quick to leave, and gave him his chance. 
While on this trip Kermit passed his twentieth 
birthday. While still nineteen he had killed all the 
dangerous kinds of African game — lion, leopard, 
elephant, buffalo, and rhino. 
Heller also rejoined us, entirely recovered. He had 
visited Mearns and Loring at their camp high up on 
Mount Kenia, where they had made a thorough 
biological survey of the mountain. He had gone to 
the line of perpetual snow, where the rock peak rises 
abruptly from the swelling downs, and had camped 
near a little glacial lake, whose waters froze every night. 
The zones of plant and animal life were well marked ; 
but there are some curious differences between the zones 
on these equatorial African snow mountains and those 
on similar mountains in the northern hemisphere, espe¬ 
cially America. In the high mountains of North 
America the mammals are apt to be, at least in part, 
of totally different kinds from those found in the 
adjacent warm or hot plains, because they represent a 
fauna which was once spread over the land, but which 
has retreated northward, leaving faunal islands on the 
summits of the taller mountains. In this part of Africa, 
however, there has been no faunal retreat of this type, 
no survivals on the peaks of an ancient fauna, which in 
the plains and valleys has been replaced by another 
fauna. Here the mammals of the high mountains and 
