THIS TELEPHOTOGRAPH OF STORKS ON THE WING WILL GIVE SOME IDEA OF THE HUGE FLOCKS IN WHICH THEY START ON THEIR NORTHERN MIGRATION IN FEBRUARY.
C. G. Schillings, phot.
WHITE STORKS GATHERING FOR THEIR NORTHERN MIGRATION TO EUROPE.
But, on the other hand, there are also days when such an abundance of animal forms presents itself to our eyes, that the most lively imagination can form no idea of all this profusion. On such days, I have often wished that one could have a gigantic photographic apparatus, an instrument that would be capable of making a record of all I saw. But on such days, also, I have more than once made a mental apology to explorers whose lives have long closed in death. When, for instance, in former years I had looked over the sketches of the late Cornwallis Harris, sketches showing the life of the South African fauna as he saw it about the year 1837, I more than once had my doubts about the correctness of his representations of it. As the result of what I myself have seen, I have quite given up such doubts.
REMAINS OF RHINOCEROSES KILLED BY THE BOERS ON THE SHORE OF ONE OF THE MERKER LAKES.
The original sketches left to us by Cornwallis Harris (which I must say do not always rise to a high level From the artistic point of view[36]) are coloured sketches accompanied by descriptions, and show us such multitudes of wild animals that they seem to border on the fabulous. For we see in them elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes, buffaloes, zebras and antelopes, all gathered together in crowds, and thus one inclines involuntarily to the opinion that all these have been brought together in one picture merely to give illustrations of the various species. But my own observations have shown me that our artist is perfectly correct. One sees how necessary it is to make documentary records of such observations. The men of a later time, as I plainly realise, may be able to place before themselves a picture of all this primitive abundance of animal life only with the greatest trouble and by means of earnest study of every authority bearing on the matter.
Enormous periods of time must have gone by to develop all the beauty and splendour of this so varied and so highly organised life. My thoughts range over far distant times. I see, looking so near that it seems as one could touch it with one’s hands, one of the mightiest volcanoes of our earth gradually unveiling itself and stripping off its robe of clouds. The volcanic regions below it remind me of the story of how all my surroundings were developed.
Born in fire, and evolved, differentiated, and formed to so much beauty, which no hostile hand has yet come to destroy, the scene around me is so splendid that my eyes keep ranging over it, more and more eager to contemplate all its splendours.