FINDS IN UGANDA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22566, 9 May 1935, Page 10

FINDS IN UGANDA

VISIT OF BRITISH PARTY Last September two scientists from the 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 tfill 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 Ruwenzori Range and other ranges of similar altitudes. On the top of some of them they collected many specimens of the everlasting type of flowers, some resembling the daisy family, and some fine 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. "We 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 the 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 the mountains, but *-ot in the plains beneath." The scientists climbed three extinct volcanoes. In the bamboo /orests they discovered two new species of mosquitoes. A caterpillar bores holes in the bam'-oo stem which admit water, and mosquito larvae breed in the water. They also found a new white frog. One of the greatest thrills wag 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 the King's broadcast from Sandringham, "God bless you all."

The Natural History Museum is rhvining another expedition, this time in. Abyssinia, to be led by Dr Hugh Geo*-' and Mr A. H. G. Alston.