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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



was a very interesting man, an Ameri- 

 can of the before-the-war type. He was 

 tall, straight as an Indian, with white 

 hair and smooth-shaven clear-cut face; 

 a dignified figure, always in a black 

 frock coat. He had no scientific knowl- 

 edge of birds or mammals; his interest 

 lay merely in collecting and preparing 

 them. He taught me as much as my 

 limitations would allow of the art of 

 preparing specimens for scientific use 

 and of mounting them. Some examples 

 of my wooden methods of mounting 

 birds ^ are now in the American Mu- 

 seum : three different species of Egyp- 

 tian plover, a snowy owl, and a couple 

 of spruce grouse mounted on a shield 

 with a passenger pigeon — the three 

 latter killed in Maine during my col- 

 lege vacations. 



With my spectacles, my pin-fire gun, 

 and my clumsy industry in skinning 

 "specimens," I passed the winter of 

 '72-73 in Egypt and Palestine, being 

 then fourteen years old. My collections 

 showed nothing but enthusiasm on my 

 part. I got no bird of any unusual sci- 

 entific value. My observations were as 

 valueless as my collections save on just 

 one small point; and this point is of 

 interest only as showing, not my own 

 power of observation, but the ability of 

 good men to fail to observe or record 

 the seemingly self-evident. 



On the Nile the only book dealing 

 with Egyptian birds which I had with 

 me was one by an English clergyman, 

 a Mr. Smith, who at the end of his sec- 

 ond volume gave a short list of the 

 species he had shot, with some com- 

 ments on their habits but without de- 

 scriptions. On my way home through 

 Europe I secured a good book of Egyp- 

 tian ornithology by a Captain Shelley. 

 Both books enumerated and commented 



^ Director F, A. Lucas, of the American Mu- 

 seum, reports to me that Colonel Roosevelt is too 

 modest in this matter. The specimens are on ex- 

 hibition in an alcove on the west side of the hall 

 of birds, and compare favorably with the speci- 

 mens in the adjoining cases which were mounted 

 by the ordinary professional taxidermist of that 

 time. — The Editor. 



on several species of chats— the Old 

 World chats, of course, which have 

 nothing in common with our queer 

 warbler of the same name. Two of 

 these chats were common along the 

 edges of the desert. One species was a 

 boldly pied black and white bird, the 

 other was colored above much like the 

 desert sand, so that when it crouched it 

 was hard to see. I found that the strik- 

 ingly conspicuous chat 'never tried to 

 hide, was very much on the alert, and 

 was sure to attract attention when a 

 long way off; whereas the chat whose 

 upper color harmonized with its sur- 

 roundings usually sought to escape 

 observation by crouching motionless. 

 These facts were obvious even to a dull- 

 sighted, not particularly observant boy ; 

 they were essential features in the com- 

 parison between and in the study of the 

 life histories of the two birds. Yet 

 neither of the two books in my posses- 

 sion so much as hinted at them. 



I think it was my observation of 

 these, and a few similar facts, which 

 prevented my yielding to the craze 

 that fifteen or twenty years ago be- 

 came an obsession with certain other- 

 wise good men — the belief that all 

 animals were protectively colored when 

 in their natural surroundings. That 

 this simply wasn't true was shown by a 

 moment's thought of these two chats; 

 no rational man could doubt that one 

 was revealingly and the other conceal- 

 ingly colored; and each was an example 

 of what was true in thousands of other 

 eases. Moreover, the incident showed 

 the only, and very mild, merit which I 

 ever developed as a "faunal naturalist." 

 I never grew to have keen powers of 

 observation. But whatever I did see I 

 saw truly, and I was fairly apt to un- 

 derstand what it meant. In other 

 words, I saw what was sufficiently 

 obvious, and in such case did not usu- 

 ally misinterpret what I had seen. 

 Certainly this does not entitle me to 

 any particular credit, but the outstand- 

 ing thing is that it does entitle me to 



