226 Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 



7. " While I have not had the opportunity to read it thoroughly I 

 have gone through it sufficiently to get the salient points, and I want 

 to take this opportunity of expressing my interest in this memorial 

 to the Great American. No more appropriate memorial could be 

 devised. 



" I am especially interested in the plan to study the animal life. 

 In his foreword Dr. Grinnell brings out admirably a point of which 

 I became increasingly aware in my own work, namely, that there is 

 a great lack of information as to the most common habits of many ot 

 our most familiar wild animals. A rather extended experience as a 

 writer of animal stories for children has convinced me that it is the 

 common things, the simple things pertaining to the daily lives of our 

 woodland and meadow creatures, that are of greatest interest to the 

 public at large. This is as true of adults as of children. Time and 

 time again I have had letters of inquiries regarding the traits or 

 habits of familiar animals which I could not myself answer from 

 personal experience, and which I have been unable to find in the 

 published works of our best authorities. The latter have been so 

 engrossed in the scientific relations of one to another that they have 

 either overlooked common habits or else have considered them too 

 trivial to be of interest. It has been astonishing to me to find how 

 often comparatively little is known of the daily lives of our most 

 familiar creatures. Therefore I rejoice that the Roosevelt Experi- 

 ment Station is to take up this line of work. 



" I note that it is proposed to assemble a library of books, photo- 

 graphs, and publications pertaining to forest wild life. I do not see 

 moving picture films included. [This is an oversight as provision 

 was made for these. C. C. A.] It seems to me that somewhere in 

 this country there should be a complete collection of all good moving 

 picture films of American wild life which have been made or will be 

 made. I know the American Museum has a very good collection of 

 such films, but I also know that there are very many films not pos- 

 sessed by the American Museum or any other museum. It seems to 

 me that every motion picture photographer should be willing to con- 

 tribute a print from every reel he makes providing that he is assured 

 that such reels are not being used in any way to conflict with his own 

 use of the material. A museum of mounted specimens is of course 

 of the utmost value to the student, and to the public at large, but of 

 equal value it seems to me are motion pictures showing the living 

 creature in its natural environment and concerned in the daily affairs 

 of life." — Thornton W. Burgess. 



8. " I have just received the first issue of the Roosevelt Wild Life 

 Bulletin * * * and have taken a keen delight in reading it. 

 What you are planning to do at the Roosevelt Wild Life Experiment 

 Station is, to my mind, one of the most important and significant 

 things in connection with wild life conservation of this day. So far 

 as I know it is the only movement and effort of the kind and is, with- 

 out the possibility of a doubt, on the right track. * * * 



