Читать книгу In Brightest Africa онлайн

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Akeley has come into closest touch with all these animals in turn, even at great personal risk, always leaving with increased rather than diminished admiration for them. This quality of truthfulness, combined with his love of beauty of the animal form—beauty of hide, of muscle, of bone, of facial expressions—will give permanence to Akeley's work, and permanence will be the sure test of its greatness.

Henry Fairfield Osborn.

July 27, 1923.

American Museum.

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PAGE Map of the Elephant Country ssss1 Sketch Indicating Mr. Akeley's Movements During Encounter with Leopard 98 Map Showing Mr. Akeley's Route to Gorilla Country 199 Map Showing Location of Three Mountains, Mikeno, Karisimbi, and Visoke ssss1 Plan of the Main Floor and Gallery of Roosevelt African Hall 255 A Section of the "Annex" Containing Habitat Groups ssss1

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IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA

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As a boy I lived on a farm near Clarendon, Orleans County, N. Y., and for some reason, about the time I was thirteen, I got interested in birds. I was out of place on the farm for I was much more interested in taxidermy than in farming. As a matter of fact, by the time I was sixteen I announced to the world that I was a taxidermist. I had borrowed a book which had originally cost a dollar, and from that book I learned taxidermy up to a point where I felt justified in having business cards printed stating that I did artistic taxidermy in all its branches. I even went so far as to take several lessons in painting from a lady who taught art in Clarendon, in order that I might paint realistic backgrounds behind the birds that I mounted. So far as I know, that was the first experiment of painted backgrounds used for mounted birds or animals. I believe that my first attempt in this direction is still in existence in Clarendon but I have been a little afraid to go to see it.