Portal:Zimbabwe/Featured biography/February 2008

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frederick Courteney Selous (or Courtney) (31 December 1851 - 4 January 1917) was a British explorer, hunter, and conservationist famous for his exploits in Southern Africa. His real-life adventures inspired Sir H. Rider Haggard to create the fictional Allan Quatermain character. Selous was also a good friend of Theodore Roosevelt and Frederick Russell Burnham. He was the older brother of ornithologist and writer Edmund Selous.

Selous was born in London, and was educated at Rugby and in Germany. His love for natural history led to the resolve to study the ways of wild animals in their native haunts. Going to South Africa when he was nineteen, he travelled from the Cape of Good Hope to Matabeleland, reached early in 1872, and was granted permission by Lobengula to shoot game anywhere in his dominions.