settler's barn, with
huge timbers hewn from forest trees--that stood near by, and which the
President said he preserved for its picturesqueness and its savor of
old times, as well as for a place to romp in with his dogs and
children, we made our way to the house.

The purple finch nested in the trees about the house, and the
President was greatly pleased that he was able to show us this bird
also.

[Illustration: A PATH IN THE WOODS LEADING TO COLD SPRING
HARBOR

From stereograph, copyright 1907, by Underwood & Underwood,
New York]

A few days previous to our visit the children had found a bird's nest
on the ground, in the grass, a few yards below the front of the house.
There were young birds in it, and as the President had seen the
grasshopper sparrow about there, he concluded the nest belonged to it.
We went down to investigate it, and found the young gone and two
addled eggs in the nest. When the President saw those eggs, he said:
"That is not the nest of the grasshopper sparrow, after all; those are
the eggs of the song sparrow, though the nest is more like that of the
vesper sparrow. The eggs of the grasshopper sparrow are much lighter
in color--almost white, with brown specks." For my part, I had quite
forgotten for the moment how the eggs of the little sparrow looked or
differed in color from those of the song sparrow. But the President
has so little to remember that he forgets none of these minor things!
His bird-lore and wood-lore seem as fresh as if just learned.

I asked him if he ever heard that rare piece of bird music, the flight
song of the oven-bird. "Yes," he replied, "we frequently hear it of an
evening, while we are sitting on the porch, right down there at the
corner of the woods." Now, this flight song of the oven-bird was
unknown to the older ornithologists, and Thoreau, with all his years
of patient and tireless watching of birds and plants, never identified
it; but the President had caught it quickly and easily, sitting on his
porch at Sagamore Hill. I believe I may take the credit of being the
first to identify and describe this song--back in the old "Wake Robin"
days.

In an inscription in a book the President had just given me he had
referred to himself as my pupil. Now I was to be his pupil. In dealing
with the birds I could keep pace with him pretty easily, and, maybe,
occasionally lead him; but when we came to consider big game and the
animal life of the globe, I w