THREE NEW VARIETIES OF EAST AFRICAN WILD BUFFALOES: BUBALUS SCHILLINGSI Mtsch. spec. nov., FROM THE MIDDLE PANGANI, LAKE DJIPE MOMBASA; BUBALUS NUHAHENSIS, Mtsch. spec. nov., FROM UPOGORO, ’NDEMA, ’MBARAGANDU AND THE UPPER RUAHAIS; BUBALUS WEMBARENSIS, Mtsch. spec. nov., FROM THE TSHAIA MARSHES IN THE SOUTHERN WEMBERE STEPPE. THE ILLUSTRATIONS SHOW HOW GREATLY THE FORM OF THE BUFFALO’S HORNS VARIES IN DIFFERENT DISTRICTS, AND GIVE A PROOF OF THE IMPORTANCE OF SCIENTIFIC COLLECTIONS FOR EACH SEPARATE REGION.
I have to thank Professor Matschie for the two lower illustrations.
Those who speak thus completely forget that it was through the material thus placed before their eyes that they themselves obtained their very first knowledge of these beautiful creatures; that till then they hardly took any interest in such things; and that it is only by means of knowledge secured in this way that regulations for the preservation of these beauties of nature can be devised.
Let us suppose that every museum and scientific collection in the world were provided with a series of specimens of all the varieties of the animal world that are now most seriously threatened with extinction; let us further suppose that each of these institutions secured, besides, duplicate series of the hides and skeletons of each species. To make a striking comparison, all this, beside the wholesale destruction of the animal world of which we have to complain, would be like a week-end sportsman perhaps killing one hare during his whole life compared to the millions of hares killed every year in Germany.
If a species is already reduced to such a state that the taking of a few hundred, or even a few thousand, specimens for scientific purposes will exterminate it, we may say generally that, even without this proceeding, it is inevitably doomed to extinction. But the wretched egg-collecting by youths, for instance, is quite a different matter. Certainly there must be a great deficiency, when continually, year after year, wood and meadow are searched for birds’ nests by thousands of boys. This is obvious, and thus the rarer species are threatened in their very existence.
MODERN METHODS OF TAXIDERMY: SETTING UP.
ONE OF MY SPECIMENS IN THE MUNICH MUSEUM.
