1 91 9- J Obituary. 337 



indulged in further collecting beyond superintending the 

 work of his naturalists in the course of his big expedition 

 to Africa. 



As a matter of fact, his knowledge of American and 

 African birds was very considerable, for he was so thorough 

 in all he did that when undertaking any new project his 

 method was to thoroughly study the literature of the 

 subject, and this, combined with his marvellous memorv, 

 enabled him to ))egin his work better equii)ped than 

 most men. 



We have heard much of Roosevelt the talker and 

 Roosevelt the Politician teaching all and sundry their 

 business with equal conHdence, but I think his greatest 

 asset was hard work and a superb memory. He took 

 trouble to make himself agreeable and well-informed, and 

 seemed to know as ranch about other people's tastes and 

 family history as they did themselves, I remember the first 

 time I met him at a luncheon party at Lord Lonsdale's 

 in 1908. He spoke in turn to nearly every man there and 

 was cognisant of all their past history and activities, because 

 I feel sure he had read it all beforehand, I suppose I was 

 the only man he had not addressed, and just as all were 

 leaving he came up to me and said, "• I seem to know your 

 face, who arc you '"' ? "• Millais is my name/' I replied. 

 '' What ! Breath from the Veldt Millais," he said enthusi- 

 astically, ''you've just got to sit down right here and have a 

 chat. I don't know when I have been so pleased to meet 

 anyone." 



That was just the nice way he had of being agreeable, 

 and if we did not have a chat, I listened at any rate for 

 some twenty minutes with absorbed interest to his views 

 of Nature and the Zoology of South Africa, of Mhich he 

 displayed, contrary to my expectations, a very considerable 

 knowledge. He described Bustards, Plovers, Raptorials, 

 Cranes, Fraucolins, etc. in a way that quite astonished me, 

 although I knew he could not have seen them, and when I 

 made some comment, he said he had read every work on 

 the Birds and Mammals of Africa he could obtain at the 



