The chapters comprised in the present volume were written at various times during the last ten years. Some of them have already appeared in print in the pages of the Field, Land and Water, and other papers, but the majority have remained in manuscript until now. The greatest part of the matter in the chapters on the "Lion" was written some years ago, and was intended to be the commencement of a book dealing entirely with the life-history of South African mammals. When, however, I was asked by Mr. Rowland Ward to contribute to a book he was about to publish on the Great and Small Game of Africa, all the articles in which would be written by men who had personally studied the habits of the animals they described, I gave up the idea of myself writing a less comprehensive work on similar lines, and became one of the chief contributors to Mr. Ward's large and valuable publication.
My manuscript notes on the lion and some other animals were then consigned to the seclusion of a drawer in my study, from which they would probably never again have emerged had it not been for the fact that during the autumn of 1905 I had the honour to be the guest of President Roosevelt at the White House in Washington.
[Pg viii]
I found that President Roosevelt's knowledge of wild animals was not confined to the big game of North America, with which he has made himself so intimately acquainted by long personal experience, but that he also possessed a most comprehensive acquaintance with the habits of the fauna of the whole world, derived from the careful study of practically every book that has been written on the subject.
In the course of conversation, President Roosevelt remarked that he wished I would bring out another book, adding to the natural history notes which I had already written on the big game of South Africa; and on my telling him that I had some manuscript notes on the lion and other animals which I had once intended to publish, but had subsequently put on one side, he requested me to let him see them. On my return to England I at once posted these articles to President Roosevelt, who was kind enough to say that he had found them so interesting that he earnestly hoped I would add to them and bring out another book. Thus encouraged, I set about the revision of all my recent writings dealing with the natural history of South African animals which had not been published in book form, and after arranging them in chapters, sent the whole of the manuscript to President Roosevelt, at the same time asking him to be good enough to look through them, if he could find the time to do so, and telling him that if he thought them of sufficient interest to publish in the form of a book, how much I should appreciate it, if he were able to write me a few lines by way of introduction, since the publication of the book would be entirely[Pg ix] due to the kind encouragement and inspiration I had received from himself. This request met with a most kind and generous response, for which I shall ever feel most grateful, for, in the midst of all his multifarious and harassing public duties, President Roosevelt contrived to find the time to write an introduction to my book, which adds to it a most interesting and valuable chapter.
The title I have given to my book, African Nature Notes and Reminiscences, though it perhaps lacks terseness, nevertheless exactly describes its scope, and although the chapters dealing with the "Tse-tse" Fly and the subject of Protective Coloration and the Influence of Environment on large mammals may have no interest except for a small number of naturalists, I trust that much of the matter contained in the remaining seventeen articles will appeal to a much wider public.
