July 30, 1969 
Mr. John Seago 
Mr. D, A. Parkinson 
c/o Barclay's Bank 
Box 30011 
Nairebi, Kenya 
Dear John and Tony: 
I have three letters of yours to reply to -- how wonderful! Your letter of 
July 18 arrived on the 22nd; the hand-written letter of the 18th arrived on 
the 25th, and your letter of a 23 arrived July 28. Wonderful to have 
SO much news of you. 
First of all let me say how delightful the little Kikuyu white-eyes are. Ever 
since they arrived I have gone by and seen them every morning on my way 
to the office. Such pretty, saucy little characters they are with their bright 
eye circles and their yellow masks. They remind me of many happy hours 
spent in your bailiwick. Believe me, some of the keepers are looking at me 
kind of curiously and wondering why I am so psyched up over such little 
birds. lam, of course, overjoyed that the Paradise cranes have raised 
two babies, and that the crowned cranes that you sent us a couple of years ago 
had their second clutch this year and successfully raised two. I am very 
excited that the Sarus cranes are sitting on eggs. I am thrilled over the 
Argus pheasant and the red-fronted geese laying eggs, but none of these birds 
mean as much to me personally in terms of my own memories as do the 
white-eyes. When the water-bottle bird gets here Iam sure I will get all 
psyched up listening to him. 
This morning early I was playing with the tiger cubs on the lawn in front of 
the lion house when one of our police who had caught a German shepherd dog 
walked by the Colobus monkey cage on his way to the holding pen we have for 
stray degs. The male Colobus started the rolling coughing call. It did not 
have the volume and he was only one animal but it certainly made the hair 
rise on the back of my neck, recalling these sounds early in the morning at 
Kimmuturi. 
Lucy, the white rhino, has for some years had a malformation of her horns, 
and when an infestation of maggots was discovered as the base of one horn, 
steps had to be taken. Dr. Gray gave her 1 mg of M99, and in 14 minutes 
she was immobilized. The base of the horn was cleaned with peroxide 
and then both horns were removed. A hand saw was used on the upper horn 
and @ power saw on the lower; then both edges were filed smooth. She 
_ looks much neater. 
We now have $20,000 worth of aphrodisiac if I could 
sell it. 
