ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS 111 



Africa to Professor Matschie of Berlin. The learned 

 zoologist in question pronounced them as the skulls 

 of three different subspecies, giving each and all 

 separate names. 



More recently Roosevelt himself expressed his 

 views on scientific nomenclature : " The time has 

 passed when we can afford to accept as satisfactory 

 a science of animal life whose professors are either 

 mere roaming field collectors or mere closet cata- 

 logue-writers who examine and record minute 

 differences in ' specimens ' precisely as philatelists 

 examine and record minute differences in postage 

 stamps — and with about the same breadth of view 

 and power of insight into the essential. Little is 

 to be gained by that kind of ' intensive ' collecting 

 and cataloguing which bears fruit only in innumer- 

 able little pamphlets describing with meticulous 

 care unimportant new subspecies, or new species 

 hardly to be distinguished from those already long 

 known. Such pamphlets have almost no real 

 interest, except for the infrequent rival specialists 

 who read them with quarrelsome interest." — Intro- 

 duction to Tropical Wild Life in British Guiana, 

 by William Beebe (1917). 



Although it must be acknowledged that Roose- 

 velt's favourites amongst wild creatures were the 

 larger mammals, and especially the dangerous ones, 

 which afforded opportunities in the excitement of 

 the chase of thrilling moments, his delight in the 

 birds of Africa and America always displayed the 

 feelings of the true naturalist, whose chief instinct 

 is not to slay, but to sit down and study the ways of 

 wild creatures in their natural homes. In spite 

 of his abundant energy, the President had also a 



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