[Illustration: A YEARLING IN THE APPLE ORCHARD
From stereograph, copyright 1907, by Underwood & Underwood, New York]
The President's interest in birds, and in natural history generally, dates from his youth. While yet in his teens he published a list of the birds of Franklin County, New York. He showed me a bird journal which he kept in Egypt when he was a lad of fourteen, and a case of three African plovers which he had set up at that time; and they were well done.
Evidently one of his chief sources of pleasure at Sagamore Hill is the companionship of the birds. He missed the bobolink, the seaside finch, and the marsh wren, but his woods and grounds abounded in other species. He knew and enjoyed not only all the more common birds, but many rarer and shyer ones that few country people ever take note of--such as the Maryland yellow-throat, the black and white creeper, the yellow-breasted chat, the oven-bird, the prairie warbler, the great crested flycatcher, the wood pewee, and the sharp-tailed finch. He enjoyed the little owls, too. "It is a pity the little-eared owl is called a screech owl. Its tremulous, quavering cry is not a screech at all, and has an attraction of its own. These little owls come up to the house after dark, and are fond of sitting on the elk's antlers over the gable. When the moon is up, by choosing one's position, the little owl appears in sharp outline against the bright disk, seated on his many-tined perch."
A few days after my visit he wrote me that he had identified the yellow-throated or Dominican warbler in his woods, the first he had ever seen. I had to confess to him that I had never seen the bird. It is very rare north of Maryland. The same letter records several interesting little incidents in the wild life about him:
"The other night I took out the boys in rowboats for a camping-out expedition. We camped on the beach under a low bluff near the grove where a few years ago on a similar expedition we saw a red fox. This time two young foxes, evidently this year's cubs, came around the camp half a dozen times during the night, coming up within ten yards of the fire to pick up scraps and seeming to be very little bothered by our presence. Yesterday on the tennis ground I found a mole shrew. He was near the side lines first. I picked him up in my handkerchief, for he bit my hand, and after we had all looked at him I let him go; but in a few minutes he came back and deliberately crossed the tennis grounds by the net. As he ran over the level floor of the court, his motion reminded all of us of the motion of those mechanical mice that run around on wheels when wound up. A chipmunk that lives near the tennis court continually crosses it when the game is in progress. He has done it two or three times this year, and either he or his predecessor has had the same habit for several years. I am really puzzled to know why he should go across this perfectly bare surface, with the players jumping about on it, when he is not frightened and has no reason that I can see for going. Apparently he grows accustomed to the players and moves about among them as he would move about, for instance, among a herd of cattle."