8 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 



Ill June, 1008, the following letter was received from President 



Iu .osevelt : 



The White House, Washington. 



Oyster Bay, N. Y., June 20, 1908. 



My Deab Doctoe Walcott: About tlie 1st of April next I intend to start for 

 Africa. My plans are of course indefinite, but at present I hope they will be 

 something on the following order : 



By May 1 I shall land at Mombasa and spend the next few months hunting 

 and traveling in British and German East Africa; probably going thence to or 

 toward Uganda, with the expectation of striking the Nile about the beginning 

 of the new year, and then working down it, with side trips after animals and 

 birds, so as to come out at tide water, say, about March 1. This would give 

 me ten months in Africa. As you know, I am not in the least a game butcher. 

 1 like to do a certain amount of hunting, but my real and main interest is the 

 interest of a faunal naturalist. Now, it seems to me that this opens the best 

 chance for the National Museum to get a fine collection not only of the big 

 game beasts, but of the smaller mammals and birds of Africa ; and looking at it 

 dispassionately, I believe that the chance ought not to be neglected. I will 

 make arrangements to pay for the expenses of myself and my son. But what I 

 would like to do would be to get one or two professional field taxidermists, field 

 naturalists, to go with me, who should prepare and send back the specimens we 

 collect. The collection which would thus go to the National Museum would be 

 of unique value. It would, I hope, include specimens of big game, together with 

 the rare smaller animals and birds. I have not the means that would enable 

 me to pay for the field naturalists or taxidermists and their kit, and the cur- 

 ing and transport of the specimens for the National Museum. Of course the 

 actual hunting of the big game I would want to do myself, or have my son do; 

 but the specimens will all go to the National Museum, save a very few personal 

 trophies of little scientific value which for some reason I might like to keep. 

 Now, can you, in view of getting these specimens for the National Museum, 

 arrange for the services of the field taxidermists, and for the care and trans- 

 port of the specimens? As ex-President, I should feel that the National Mu- 

 seum is the museum to which my collection should go. 

 With high regard, sincerely yours, 



Theodore Roosevelt. 



Hon. Charles D. Walcott, 



Secretary Smithsonian Institution, 



Washington, D. G. 



To which I replied from camp in Montana, where I was carrying 

 on geological investigations for the Institution : 



Belton, Mont., June 21, 1908. 

 To the President, 



Oyster Ban, N. Y. 

 Dear Mr. President : Your letter of June 20, with a copy of a letter Dr. Cyrus 

 Adler Wrote you in reply, just received. 



I am immensely pleased at the thought of your collections coming to the 

 National Museum, and it will give me the greatest pleasure to provide two 

 taxidermists and their kit, and to arrange for the curing and transport of the 

 specimens. 



I leave in the morning for the Kintla Lake region and the Continental Divide, 

 as most of the geological work has to be done above timber line. 



Thanking you most heartily and sincerely for the opportunity of securing the 

 African material, I remain, 



Sincerely yours, Charles D. Walcott. 



