Science: The Hunter’s Sons

Some big, shaggy Tian Shan ibexes, shaggier Tian Shan sheep, still shaggier Asiatic bears, some Siberian roe (small deer), some Tahr gazelles, some goitered gazelles, and some 600 small birds and mammals, all dead and on the pack ponies of two lively brothers Roosevelt, entered the ancient city of Kashgar (eastern Turkestan) last week. “Fine success,” cable those sons of a great hunter, Theodore Jr. and Kermit Roosevelt. They had come back to their base from the rugged Tian Shan mountains after losing ponies, breath and weight in the arduous passes. Their ornithologist and curator, George K. Cherrie, was to proceed at once with their heavy bag back to civilization, via Russian Turkestan and the Caspian Sea, collecting as he went. They, the hunters, with a small, light-geared party would dash once more into the Pamir Mountains to the northward, whither they had started last month but turned back when they found that the special object of their arduous climb to “the rooftree of the world,” the fabulous ovis poli (Marco Polo sheep), was shedding his summer coat and in no fit condition to be shot and brought home to the Field Museum (Chicago).

Meantime, wondering what fates were befalling their husbands, the great hunter’s daughters-in-law, Mrs. Theodore Jr. and Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt, distributed their eight children among three grandmothers, and set sail for Europe, whence by ship, rail and motor and with a special guide they will follow their husbands’ trail into Kashmir. There, a happy rendezvous; then perhaps a joint hunt for museum specimens of the long-haired tiger.