down
with nets and bags for the sole purpose of catching bats and you will arrive
back in camp with a python in the nets, your bags full of birds, and your
pockets full of giant millipedes. You can search for days in the forest after a
certain species of squirrel, and when you have given it up in despair and are
spending a day in camp, a pair of the wretched rodents come and play among the
branches of the tree that overhangs your tent. Imagine that you can fool fate,
and spend a day in the forest with twenty assistants armed with every
conceivable device for catching anything from an elephant to a fly, and you
will walk all day and see nothing at all. You know that a certain creature that
you want is found only in one type of country, say in grass fields in the
forest. It has never been recorded in any other type of country by anyone . . .
until you start to look for it. You carefully search every grass field for
miles around, setting traps, smoking, and generally combing the territory. You
catch a remarkable variety of rats, mice, grasshoppers, snakes, and lizards, in
fact everything but the animal you want. But, knowing that it is found only in
grass fields, you persist in your futile task. After you have searched an
acreage that appears to be twice the size of Argentine pampas you give it up as
a bad job, and a week later you catch your first specimen of the animal sitting
in a thickly overgrown part of the forest, approximately twenty miles from the
nearest grass field. Of course, this sort of thing can be very trying, but, as
I say, there is a certain charm in sallying forth into the forest and not
really knowing whether you will come back empty-handed or with half a dozen of
the most priceless specimens you could wish for. There are any number of
interesting creatures to be found in the Cameroons, as there are in other parts
of the world, and at least half of them have never been seen alive in England,
or, for that matter, anywhere outside their native forests. There are other
creatures which are so rare that they are only known by two or three skins in
the museums of the world, and nothing is known about their habits in the wild
state. All that is known is that they exist. These sort of specimens were, of
course, the ones we wanted most. There are only two ways to find out about how
an animal lives, and what its habits are: one is to study it in the wilds and
the other is to keep it in captivity. As the greater proportion of zoologists
cannot go to outlandish parts of the world to study their specimens in the
field, the specimens must be brought to them. That is why I thought it was more
important to bring back an animal that had never been seen alive in captivity,
even if it was only a species of mouse, than to bother overmuch with the larger
and better-known animals. Unfortunately, even a collector has to eat, and it is
the bigger and more spectacular creatures that command the heavy prices.
There was one
inhabitant of the Cameroons which I was more anxious to obtain than any other,
and this was the Angwantibo, a small and exceedingly rare lemur, which is found
nowhere else in the world except the Cameroon forests. I had been asked
especially to try and obtain this creature by the Zoological Society of London,
as they had never had a specimen, and it would prove of great interest both to
naturalists and anatomists. Of this rare creature I had only one drawing, and
this grew gradually more dirty and creased as the days passed, for it was shown
to every hunter who came to see me, and I pleaded with them to try and obtain
me a specimen. But the weeks rolled by and there was no sign of a specimen, and
I began to despair. I raised the price I was offering for it to no avail. As
this animal is strictly nocturnal I thought that there was a fair chance of
seeing one during our night hunts, and so, whenever possible, I got Elias and
Andraia to lead me to parts of the forest where the trees were overgrown with
lianas and
with nets and bags for the sole purpose of catching bats and you will arrive
back in camp with a python in the nets, your bags full of birds, and your
pockets full of giant millipedes. You can search for days in the forest after a
certain species of squirrel, and when you have given it up in despair and are
spending a day in camp, a pair of the wretched rodents come and play among the
branches of the tree that overhangs your tent. Imagine that you can fool fate,
and spend a day in the forest with twenty assistants armed with every
conceivable device for catching anything from an elephant to a fly, and you
will walk all day and see nothing at all. You know that a certain creature that
you want is found only in one type of country, say in grass fields in the
forest. It has never been recorded in any other type of country by anyone . . .
until you start to look for it. You carefully search every grass field for
miles around, setting traps, smoking, and generally combing the territory. You
catch a remarkable variety of rats, mice, grasshoppers, snakes, and lizards, in
fact everything but the animal you want. But, knowing that it is found only in
grass fields, you persist in your futile task. After you have searched an
acreage that appears to be twice the size of Argentine pampas you give it up as
a bad job, and a week later you catch your first specimen of the animal sitting
in a thickly overgrown part of the forest, approximately twenty miles from the
nearest grass field. Of course, this sort of thing can be very trying, but, as
I say, there is a certain charm in sallying forth into the forest and not
really knowing whether you will come back empty-handed or with half a dozen of
the most priceless specimens you could wish for. There are any number of
interesting creatures to be found in the Cameroons, as there are in other parts
of the world, and at least half of them have never been seen alive in England,
or, for that matter, anywhere outside their native forests. There are other
creatures which are so rare that they are only known by two or three skins in
the museums of the world, and nothing is known about their habits in the wild
state. All that is known is that they exist. These sort of specimens were, of
course, the ones we wanted most. There are only two ways to find out about how
an animal lives, and what its habits are: one is to study it in the wilds and
the other is to keep it in captivity. As the greater proportion of zoologists
cannot go to outlandish parts of the world to study their specimens in the
field, the specimens must be brought to them. That is why I thought it was more
important to bring back an animal that had never been seen alive in captivity,
even if it was only a species of mouse, than to bother overmuch with the larger
and better-known animals. Unfortunately, even a collector has to eat, and it is
the bigger and more spectacular creatures that command the heavy prices.
There was one
inhabitant of the Cameroons which I was more anxious to obtain than any other,
and this was the Angwantibo, a small and exceedingly rare lemur, which is found
nowhere else in the world except the Cameroon forests. I had been asked
especially to try and obtain this creature by the Zoological Society of London,
as they had never had a specimen, and it would prove of great interest both to
naturalists and anatomists. Of this rare creature I had only one drawing, and
this grew gradually more dirty and creased as the days passed, for it was shown
to every hunter who came to see me, and I pleaded with them to try and obtain
me a specimen. But the weeks rolled by and there was no sign of a specimen, and
I began to despair. I raised the price I was offering for it to no avail. As
this animal is strictly nocturnal I thought that there was a fair chance of
seeing one during our night hunts, and so, whenever possible, I got Elias and
Andraia to lead me to parts of the forest where the trees were overgrown with
lianas and
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