110 WANDERINGS AND MEMORIES 



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 which he displayed, contrary to 

 my expectations, a very considerable knowledge. 

 He described Bustards, Plovers, Raptorials, Cranes, 

 Francolins, 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 library at Washington before 

 starting on his journey. It is one thing to read 

 books, especially on birds, and quite another thing 

 to remember all their contents, but I must confess 

 that on this and subsequent occasions on which I 

 had the pleasure of talking " birds " to Roosevelt, 

 the power of his memory filled me with admiration. 



His views on modern nomenclature were some- 

 what surprising and not always consistent. At 

 first he seemed to be inclined to favour the inclusion 

 as subspecies of all local forms. This is borne out 

 by his acceptance, and even approval, of the naming 

 of the collections of the Roosevelt expedition, which 

 included many new birds and mammals as sub- 

 species which even the most enthusiastic advocates 

 of local forms could scarcely accept. On the other 

 hand, after due consideration and some time had 

 elapsed, he became a very orthodox " lumper," 

 and laughed at the claims of the " splitters." The 

 case in point which caused his conversion to the 

 former group was, he told me, an occasion when he 

 submitted the skulls of three Bos caffer which his 

 party had shot out of one herd at one place in East 



