The Yale expositor., 1910-07-29

red deer of America at all four seasons and
the environment of each season is reproduced
perfectly. One group OF deer was secured IN
summer another in fall, another in winter and
another in spring, and it is possible in walking
about the groups to see three of the animals, the
buck the doe and the young. as they appear at
the four seasons. OF course the fawn is seen In
a variation of sizes until it becomes lusty
yearling.
This illustration OF a deer group from the
Field Museum of Natural History is given In
order to show what may be expected in the Ma
tional museum at Washington when the larger
mammals of the Roosevelt collection are placed
on exhibition. OF course instead OF the American
red deer the visitor will elephants. lions. leop-
ards and several of the many families OF ante
lopes which inhabit the African country There
will be similar groups of the smaller animals.
while for the purposes of the student of animal
life there will be In drawers and In cases
throughout the museum the skins and the skulls
of the smaller mammals which are invaluable
for purposes of comparison.
The trophies which former President Roose-
welt has presented to the National museum are
not the only gifts OF value which he has made to
the institution. Some years ago when the
colonel was hunting in Oklahoma. he secured a
specimen of what at first thought to be
coyote. The colonel had remembered that Wood
house. hunternaturalist of sixty years previous.
had obtained animal in about the same part
of the country which 1t was held neither a
wolf a coyote but sort of connecting link
between the two, larger than the true coyote
and smaller than the true wolf.
Colonel Roosevelt knew that there was some
dispute to the validity of the account OF this
species. He obtained animal which was not
full grown. but he concluded that It different
from either the coyote or the wolf and he thought
II might be of the species variety that Wood
house had obtained. He sent the animal to the
scientists in Washington and they became con-
vnced after a study of the Woodhouse and the
Roosevelt specimens that there longer could
be any doubt of the existence OF family inter-
mediate between the coyotes and the wolves.
The result was that an expedition was de-
spatched to tho of the Roosevelt hunting.
and success crowned its efforts. The knowledge
which the former president had of the Wood
house specimen and the study which he gave the
specimen of his taking led to the estab-
lishment of scientific fact of considerable
value There Is now fine series OF the inter
mediate wolves In the possession OF the
tional authorities
Nearly one hundred years ago an Englishman
claimed that the bear of the Gulf states Lousi-
ana and Mississippi, was a different species from
the ordinary black bear. The matter In dis
pute for years among the scientists. Finally
Theodore Roosevelt secured some specimens OF
the Louisiana bear and sent them to DR.. c. Hart
Merriam, then the chief of the biological survey
in Washington. Dr. Merriam recently has been
given charge OF the natural history foundation
made possible by the generosity of Mrs. E. II.
Hartman.
DR.. Merriam took the Roosevelt bear speci-
mems in hand, and after long anad painstaking
study proved that the ordinary black bear of
America and the bear of the cane brakes are
different species, thus settling a point that had
been In doubt for nearly a century. IL was the
Roosevelt interest in the study of natural history
which led to tao establishment of a fact OF mo-
ment to the scientific world