ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS 107 



was awfully good of you to take the trouble, and 

 you've put me under an obligation. The change 

 to ' Red Deer ' will be made for a new edition that's 

 coming out soon and for other editions as requisite. 

 " It's rather a coincidence that in the first and 

 last verse of those verses I should have made errors 

 which had to be corrected. I put (originally) the 

 two- or three-toed horse in the Neolithic Age, and 

 was very justly hauled over the coals for so doing. 

 I have your big vols, of the Mammals of Great 

 Britain, and I don't think that you anywhere state 

 that the common hedgehog is extraordinarily proof 

 against poisons — ^toxic for choice. He does not 

 mind diphtheria or tetanus germs, and can also 

 absorb mineral poisons in large quantities. A 

 learned professor told me so this year. Is it true ? ^ 



" Very gratefully yours, 

 " RuDYARD Kipling." 



A man I knew well for a short time was Theodore 

 Roosevelt, late President of the North American 

 Republic, and it was a great disappointment to 

 me that his untimely death prevented a visit I 

 had hoped to pay him in 1919. 



Nearly all ages and nations produce men of 

 exceptional physical and mental capacity that tower 

 above their fellows. From youth upwards they 

 exhibit a strong disposition to lead others, and allow 

 none of those obstacles that deter lesser creatures 

 to obstruct the path of ambition and success. 

 Theodore Roosevelt was one of these " super-men," 

 and though born with advantages superior to the 



1 It is very doubtful if hedgehogs are immune, as suggested. 

 They are easily poisoned by strychnine. 



