Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/32

 animals of Wisconsin, the muskrat group to be the first of the series. This suggestion was more tolerated than encouraged when it was first made, but I went as far as I could go with my dream and before I left there I finished the muskrat group, as I did most of my early experiments, in spite of the opposition of the authorities. It was the old, old story of starting a thing and having to give it up because of lack of support. But my idea won eventually. It was only a short time until my friend Wheeler was made director of the museum and from then on there was full sympathy for the plan. This was an entering wedge, and since that time group after group has been added, until now that museum has a magnificent series.

Wheeler, who had encouraged me to go to Milwaukee, also was the cause of my leaving. One year, while he was director, he went to Europe, and while abroad had a talk with Sir William Flower of the British Museum, in which Flower intimated that he would like me to go there. So I planned to quit Milwaukee and to go to London. However, I didn't immediately get any farther than Chicago. I stopped there and happened to go into the Field Museum of Natural History. It was then housed in the old art gallery of the Columbian Exposition. Professor Daniel G. Eliot was its curator of zoölogy. He offered me some taxidermy contracts on the spot and I accepted. While I was doing them he suggested that I go with him on an expedition to Africa. We started in 1896.

When we got back from that trip I continued at the