Robert W Chambers

In Search of the Unknown Robert W Chambers

Because it all seems so improbable-so horribly impossible to me now, sitting here safe and sanein my own library-I hesitate to record an episode which already appears to me less horrible thangrotesque. Yet, unless this story is written now, I know I shall never have the courage to tell thetruth about the matter-not from fear of ridicule, but because I myself shall soon cease to creditwhat I now know to be true. Yet scarcely a month has elapsed since I heard the stealthy purring ofwhat I believed to be the shoaling undertow-scarcely a month ago, with my own eyes, I saw thatwhich, even now, I am beginning to believe never existed. As for the harbor-master-and the blow Iam now striking at the old order of things-But of that I shall not speak now, or later; I shall try totell the story simply and truthfully, and let my friends testify as to my probity and the publishers ofthis book corroborate them. On the 29th of February I resigned my position under the government and left Washington toaccept an offer from Professor Farrago-whose name he kindly permits me to use-and on the firstday of April I entered upon my new and congenial duties as general superintendent of the waterfowl department connected with the Zoological Gardens then in course of erection at Bronx Park, New York. For a week I followed the routine, examining the new foundations, studying the architect's plans, following the surveyors through the Bronx thickets, suggesting arrangements for water-courses andpools destined to be included in the enclosures for swans, geese, pelicans, herons, and such of thewaders and swimmers as we might expect to acclimate in Bronx Park. It was at that time the policy of the trustees and officers of the Zoological Gardens neither toemploy collectors nor to send out expeditions in search of specimens. The society decided todepend upon voluntary contributions, and I was always busy, part of the day, in dictating answers tocorrespondents who wrote offering their services as hunters of big game, collectors of all sorts offauna, trappers, snarers, and also to those who offered specimens for sale, usually at exorbitant rates. To the proprietors of five-legged kittens, mangy lynxes, moth-eaten coyotes, and dancing bears Ireturned courteous but uncompromising refusals-of course, first submitting all such letters, together with my replies, to Professor Farra