Loveridge, Guggenheim Fellow, Leaves For Rare African Fauna Study in Fall

Arthur Loverdige, Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians at the Museum of Comparative Zoology and one of three Harvard men who were recently awarded Guggenheim fellowships, will leave for Tanganyika in September to spend ten months studying isolated and fast vanishing fauna in the "rain forests" of East Africa.

Other fellowship winners as announced last week are Jack H. Sandground, assistant professor and Curator of Helminthology at the Medical School, who will investigate comparative parasitology in the Dutch East Indies; and Clyde E. Keeler, instructor in Ophthalmic Research, who will write a book on genetics in relation to medicine. Richard P. Blackmur, well-known Boston critic, was also awarded a fellowship.

Sun Sterllizes Ground

"Rain forests," Loveridge explained yesterday, "are patches of dense forest on isolated plateaus in East Africa. They're being rapidly enroached on by plantations, and once the trees are cut, no more grow back. The sun is so hot that it practically sterilizes the ground."

"There are peculiar species of fauna in these rain forests," the former curator of the Nirobi Museum of Natural History continued, "that are unrelated to anything on the surrounding plains, and much more like Western African varieties."

Captured 14 Foot Python

On a previous African trip Loveridge captured between 400 and 500 snakes, the largest a 14 foot python weighing 130 pounds, which had just swallowed a bushbuck.

Guggenheim Fellowships are annually granted to "scholars and artists who have demonstrated unusual ability in research or in the creative arts."