New Britain herald., 1926-10-05
LIFE AS LIVED IN
 AFRICAN VILLAGE
Explorer Writes Of "Wild
 Animal" Town

Washington, Oct. The stirring routine of life in a booming city of live wild animals in East Africa is described in a letter received by the Smithsonian Institution from Dr. William NJ. Mann. director, Ma tional Geological park. who is in Tanganyika territory as head of the Smithsonian-Chrysler expedition col lecting live wild animals for the National Zoo.
 The first thing in the morning milk is delivered" writes Dr. Mann. "A line Of Wagogo natives come in from their huts each with a beer bottle full Of milk. We buy it. Then the cook gets ready a lot of boiled rice, bananas are peeled and papaws cut up and joints of meat ground or sliced and the feeding of the ami mals starts. The native is no good at all as a keeper, so each morning he must be told meat in this cage, meat in this cage, meat in this cage and the same with rice, or fruit or bread or water or anything.
 Commencing early in the morn ing the natives come in with their catch of the day before, mostly small birds but occasionally some thing larger q mongoose, a monkey CT genet. T. takes most of the morning 10 feed and water the stock. Baby antelope must be fed with the bottle, young birds by hand, fights in the monkey cages must be stopped, an inventory of the food on hand taken-something is always running out--and efforts made 10 get some more. Then the native 'fundees '-experts-who are mak- ing boxes over into cages must be watched. We have two of them at work and they turn out four or five small cages q day which are filled as fast as made. The amount of small material that comes in is enormous. Of many things we have more than we desire but nothing can be re- fused for the natives do not under stand the differences among the small birds and too many refusals would stop their efforts.
 "A few moments ago I caught a jealous native putting "posho"-na- I. tive four-into the python boxes. I had previously stopped the same boy from putting in hamburg steak.
 During the heat of the day noth- ing much happens, but later cages must be cleaned and certain of the animals fed as a second time.
 At night we try to sleep but 1 have difficulty because of the noise . Of the animals. Heynas come to the house every night attracted by the . skins of our specimens. Night be- . fore last I went out to scare away a hyena, or what I thought was a hyena, from the thorn bona. Now . in that thorn bona we have some . of our antelope, our cranes and a wonderfully good collection of the same birds of tanganyike and we do . not want any hyenas in there, So . I grabbed my 22 automatic and . started out, to shoot if necessary, to | scare the animal away. Fortunate ly I could not see to shoot because as the animal ran away it gave the unmistakable growl of a leopard. Had I fired and wounded the animal would have been charged in the dark because leopard always charges when hit.
 I've have a corking good collec ton in a number Of groups, includ- ing many things which are seldom If ever brought to the States. For instance there is no specimen of the scaly ant-eatcr or pangolin in any American zoo. We have one about . four feet long and up to now it is eating well.
 I've have some wonderful little . galagos a whole cage of spotted . genets, a grand civet cat and birds enough to fill the bird house that . congress has given our zoo for next , year. Some of the birds are won ders. We have bustards, native wild geese - spur winged geese - and . enormous black and white ravens. | It is curious that the crows here are