FINDS IN UGANDA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22100, 4 May 1935, Page 5 (Supplement)

FINDS IN UGANDA

VISIT OF BRITISH PARTY Last September two scientists from tlio Natural History Museum, South Kensington—Dr. F. W. Edwards (Entomologist) and Dr. George Taylor (Botanist) —quietly left England for Uganda to collect plants and insects in the mountains. On April 2 they were back in the museum to tell what they had seen and found.

They brought back 50 cases of flora and fauna, the exact value of which will not be known until the scientists have more carefully examined them. But they tell of a new Uganda, so developed that it is possible to travel across it almost anywhere along good roads at 40 miles an hour..

With 50 porters and native guides carrying the stores, they climbed the Rumonzori Rango and other ranges of similar altitudes. On the top of some of them they collected many specimens of the everlasting typo of flowers, mine resembling the daisy family, and some line specimens of the giant lobelia and the giant groundsel. " Some of these groundsel are trees 15ft. to 20ft. high," said Dr. Edwards, " and 2ft. to 3ft. in diameter.

" Wo also obtained a large collection of insects, butterflies and wingless flies which abound in most mountainous regions. Where there is much wind the fly frequently loses its'wings. Among tho mountain insects, at heights of about 13,000 ft., we found the same types as are found in temperate climes in England. We also found various British plants on tho mountains, but not in tho plains beneath." The scientists climbed threo extinct volcanoes. In tho bamboo forests they discovered two now species of mosquitoes. A caterpillar bores holes in the bamboo stein which admit water, and mosquito larvae broed in tho water. They also found a new white frog. One of the greatest thrills was after Christmas dinner on the top of the Ruwenzori Mountains, when the scientists, after turkey and (tinned) Christmas pudding, switched on their portable wireless set. Atmospherics were bad at 13,000 ft. and time had been miscalculated. But the lonely party heard the last four words of tho King's broadcast from Sandringham, " God bless you all." The Natural History Museum :is planning another expedition, this time in Abyssinia, to be led by Dr. Hugh Scott and Mr. A. H. G. Alston.