112 WANDERINGS AND MEMORIES 



reflective side to his character, and a very real 

 appreciation of all that is best in art and Nature. 

 He loathed what was false and untrue to life as 

 sincerely as a man like Selous. As an instance of 

 this, his excellent papers on the falsity of protective 

 coloration are a good example, and did much to 

 controvert the crystallised opinions of theoretical 

 men of science, who for the most part had no 

 knowledge of the action of Nature on the spot. 



On occasion, Roosevelt was inclined to be dog- 

 matic and, as I have remarked, somewhat incon- 

 sistent. I remember once, after he returned from 

 his African trip and his excellent book {African 

 Game-trails) had been published, he gave me a lecture 

 of about twenty minutes (with scarcely a pause to 

 take breath) on the superiority of pictures done on 

 the spot by a zoological artist over all forms of 

 instantaneous photography. At last, when I man- 

 aged to get a word in, it was impossible to refrain 

 from saying, " If these are your opinions, why 

 did you not take an artist with you instead of a 

 photographer? " " Well, you have got me there," 

 he admitted, laughing. " I could not have found the 

 right man, and if I had it is doubtful if he would 

 have come." " What was the matter with Carl 

 Rungius?^ Did you ask him?" I suggested. 

 There was no answer to this, for had Roosevelt 

 taken Rungius to Africa with him we should have 

 had a magnificent pictorial record of the larger 

 mammals of Africa which would have made his 

 book one of permanent interest, and then we should 

 have been spared that dreadful series of bad por- 

 traits of the author standing in fatuous attitudes 



^ Carl Rungius, the best artist of mammals in North America. 



