Science: The Hunter’s Sons

Eastward of where the Great Pamir Mountains sprawl their bony length between Bokhara and Chinese Turkestan, two sons of a great hunter trudged the Takla Makan Desert, daily scanning the corrugated horizon for sight of an ancient market city, Yarkand, where they would rest their legs and true their sights before going up in the hills to slay creatures whose existence had brought them half way around the world. Wrote Kermit Roosevelt from Kashmir : “I have laid plans for Indian rhinoceros, which I hope and believe will materialize. When next I write I hope I shall have an ovis poli [Marco Polo’s sheep] to report.”

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. wrote of how the caravan—financed by Merchant James Simpson of Chicago for the Field Museum (TIME, Mar. 16, 30)—had been split in two, to enable George K. Cherrie to linger behind, shooting, skinning, curing rare specimens of smallish game.