THE MIGHTIEST NIMROD OF MODERN TIMES. 355 



the man and his work, such as only an ardent admirer and enthu- 

 siastic friend could have been moved to write ; and, indeed, it would 

 almost seem, from that admiring review, written by Colonel Roose- 

 velt at that time, as though his acquaintance with the great Nimrod 

 was what determined him upon devoting practically a year of his 

 life to emulation of the African hu">ter's deeds in the wilderness. 



" Mr. Selous," the occupant of th" White House wrote, " is the 

 last of the big-game hunters of South Airica; the last of the mighty 

 hunters w^iose experience lay in the greatest hunting ground which 

 this world has seen since civilized man has appeared therein. 



" There are still many happy hunting grounds to be found by 

 adventure-loving wilderness wanderers of sufficient hardihood and 

 prowess, and in Central Africa the lumting grounds are of a char- 

 acter to satisfy the most exacting hunter of to-day. 



NATURALIST AvS WELL AS HUNTER. 



" Nevertheless, none of them quite ecjual South Africa as it 

 once was, whether as regards the extraordinary multitude of big 

 game animals, the extraordinary variety of the species or the bold 

 attraction of the conditions under which the hunting was carried on. 



" ]\Ir. Selous is much more than a mere big-game hunter, how- 

 ever; he is by instinct a keen field naturalist, an observer with a 

 power of seeing and of remembering what he has seen; and, finally, 

 he is a writer Vv^ho possesses to a very marked and unusual degree 

 the power vividly and accurately to put on paper his observations. 

 Such a combination of qualities is rare indeed." 



It was in this way that Colonel Roosevelt referred to the fact — 

 probably unknown to nearly all Americans — that this is not the first 

 occasion on Vvhich he himself has hunted in Africa, for he remarked, 

 apropos of the subject of protective coloration : 



" Wlien a boy, shooting on the edges of the desert in Egypt, I 

 was impressed with the fact that the sand grouse, rosy bullfinches, 

 sand larks and sand chats all, in the coloration of their upper parts, 

 harmonized strikingly with the surroundings, while the bold black 

 and white chats were peculiarly noticeable, and yet, as far as I could 

 see, held their own as well in the struggle for existence." 



