PRESIDENT'S HUNTING TRIP.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9363, 4 February 1909, Page 2

PRESIDENT'S HUNTING TRIP.

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT.

It is officially announced that Mr Roosevelt’s hunting trip to Africa will not be a private piomo, but a scientific enterprise of the Smithsonian Institution. The President goes away in March, and expects to be busy killing big game for a whole year The chief officials of the expedition will be Americans, but most of the hunting will take place in British territory. Mr R. J. Ounninghame, an English hunter, will he the guide, manager, friend and chief counsel of the Presidential party. The official announcement Sa The expedition will gather natural history materials for the Government collections, to be deposited by the Smithsonian Institution in the new United States National Museum at Washington. On arriving in Africa, Mr Roosevelt’s party will be enlarged by the addition of Mr Ounninghame, who is now in Africa preparing the President’s outfit. He will have charge of a i,umber of native porters, who, with the necessary animals, will he formed into a small caravan. Mr Roosevelt and son will kill the big '* cfirae. the skins and skeletons of v. hich will be prepared and shipped to the United States. Kerrait Roosevelt is to be the official photographer of the expedition. The American national collections are very deficient in natural history materials from the Dark Continent, and an effort will be made by the expedition to gather General collections zoology and botany to supply some of its deficiencies, but the main effort will be to collect the vanishing large African animals. Mr Ounninghame, who is now engaged in assembling the materials for Mr' Boosevelt’s use, has been employed tn act as guide and manager of the caravan. He is also an exnerienceed collector of natural history specimens, having made collections for the British Museum in Norway and Africa. He is an English naturalist, who has guided numerous hunting parties in Africa, and who was chief hunter for the FleldlColumbia Museum. No ffears need be entertanied for the President’s safety from tne attacks of man or beast, as every member of the party is an excellent rifle shot. The party will reach Mombasa in April, 1909. The general route will he up the Uganda River railway to Nairobi and Lake Victoria Nyanza, a distance of about 605 miles by rail, thence crossing into Uganda, and finally passing down the Nile

to Cairo. . , , Much of the hunting will be done In British East Africa, where the Uganda railroad can be used as a ■’.base of supplies and means of ready transportation. Khartoum will be reached about April, 1910. The expedition may be expected to spend about one year on African soil. The statement that President Roosevelt’s eldest son, now learning the carpet business in a Connecticut factory, will also form a member of the expedition, is untrue. Theodore Roosevelt, jun., wanted to accompany his father, but Kermit could be best spared, and Theodore is obliged to remain content with a promise that he' shall go another time.