in a book published by Dr. Chapman, of the Natural History Museum at
New York. He has written a chapter on English birds and picks out the
song of the blackbird for excellence because of its "spiritual quality."
Colonel Roosevelt liked the song of the blackbird so much that he was
almost indignant that he had not heard more of its reputation before. He
said everybody talked about the song of the thrush; it had a great
reputation, but the song of the blackbird, though less often mentioned,
was much better than that of the thrush. He wanted to know the reason of
this injustice and kept asking the question of himself and me. At last
he suggested that the name of the bird must have injured its reputation.
I suppose the real reason is that the thrush sings for a longer period
of the year than the blackbird and is a more obtrusive singer, and that
so few people have sufficient feeling about bird songs to care to
discriminate.

One more instance I will give of his interest and his knowledge. We were
passing under a fir tree when we heard a small song in the tree above
us. We stopped and I said that was the song of a golden-crested wren. He
listened very attentively while the bird repeated its little song, as
its habit is. Then he said, "I think that is exactly the same song as
that of a bird that we have in America"; and that was the only English
song that he recognized as being the same as any bird song in America.
Some time afterwards I met a bird expert in the Natural History Museum
in London and told him this incident, and he confirmed what Colonel
Roosevelt had said, that the song of this bird would be about the only
song that the two countries had in common. I think that a very
remarkable instance of minute and accurate knowledge on the part of
Colonel Roosevelt. It was the business of the bird expert in London to
know about birds. Colonel Roosevelt's knowledge was a mere incident
acquired, not as part of the work of his life, but entirely outside it.
I remember thinking at the time how strange it seemed that the
golden-crested wren, which is the very smallest bird which we have in
England, should be the only song bird which the great continent of North
America has in common with us.

But points of view are different in different countries. We may find
ourselves looking, not only at political questions, but at incidents in
natural history from a different point of view when we are on different
sides of an ocean. The ot