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151), were part of a thriving popular culture of exhibitions in the mid-nineteenth
century; their display was a central element in the imperial project to capture the
world 'under one roof' and to transform colonial spaces into exhibition-like
landscapes (Altick 1978:290-92; Greenhalgh 1988; Mitchell 1989). Displays of the
remains of 'wildlife' and 'big-game' in particular were used in a range of settings—
from scientific institutions to entertainment venues—to convey a variety of
meanings, including the colonial prospects of the territory traversed and the
manliness of the intrepid hunter.
Colonial hunters cut some of the most striking figures on the Victorian and
Edwardian imperial landscape, and remain compelling characters to this day
(Brander 1988; Bull 1992). Yet, hunting was not limited to those who made it a
full-time career. Many British colonial men (and indeed a few women) participated
in the chase and killing of wild animals, both as a form of sport and as a scientific
pursuit. Interest in pursuing zoological 'specimens' for private and national
collections was fostered by both the dramatic upsurge in the popularity of natural
history and the proliferation of popular literature and images of hunting in Britain,
which frequently pictured the hunter as a manly adventurer and hero of Empire.
The varied interests and activities of Victorian and Edwardian hunters must
therefore be set within the wider contexts of European imperialism and the relations
between human groups, animals and the environment. As a number of historians
have shown, the hunting, collecting and display of wild animals was intimately
associated with the ideology and enterprise of empire (Beinart 1990; MacKenzie
1988, 1990; Ritvo 1990; Storey 1991). This is evidenced in the work of hunters and
collectors like Charles Peel, with whom I began. Peel had long collected animal
trophies for his own pleasure, and stuffed animals like the giraffe would have at first
been housed at Peel's Oxfordshire home. However, in 1906 Peel established his
'Exhibition of Big-Game Trophies and Museum of Natural History and
Anthropology' in Oxford in order to show, 'by means of beautiful objects of
Natural History, that there are other countries in the world besides over-populated
little England' (Peel 1906:1). The message Peel sought to convey through his
hunting trophies was a proudly imperial one. As Frederick Selous, arguably the
most famous big-game hunter of the time, reportedly put it in his speech to open
Peel's Museum in July 1906:
[T]he love of adventure, love of a nomadic life, love of hunting—these
instincts had descended to the English-speaking race, and it was due to that
that this wonderful Empire had been formed. The hunter had always been a
pioneer of Empire.
(Peel 1906:4-6)
The intimate connection between hunting and imperialism was obvious to a man
like Selous who had spent some two decades (1872-92) hunting and empire-
building in Africa; activities which he publicised through his topics and lectures
