This little volume really needs no introduction; the two sketches of
which it is made explain and, I hope, justify themselves. But there is
one phase of the President's many-sided character upon which I should
like to lay especial emphasis, namely, his natural history bent and
knowledge. Amid all his absorbing interests and masterful activities
in other fields, his interest and his authority in practical natural
history are by no means the least. I long ago had very direct proof of
this statement. In some of my English sketches, following a visit to
that island in 1882, I had, rather by implication than by positive
statement, inclined to the opinion that the European forms of animal
life were, as a rule, larger and more hardy and prolific than the
corresponding forms in this country. Roosevelt could not let this
statement or suggestion go unchallenged, and the letter which I
received from him in 1892, touching these things, is of double
interest at this time, as showing one phase of his radical
Americanism, while it exhibits him as a thoroughgoing naturalist.
I am sure my readers will welcome the gist of this letter. After
some preliminary remarks he says:--
"The point of which I am speaking is where you say that the Old World
forms of animal life are coarser, stronger, fiercer, and more fertile
than those of the New World." (My statement was not quite so sweeping
as this.) "Now I don't think that this is so; at least, comparing the
forms which are typical of North America and of northern Asia and
Europe, which together form but one province of animal life.
"Many animals and birds which increase very fast in new countries, and
which are commonly spoken of as European in their origin, are really
as alien to Europe as to their new homes. Thus the rabbit, rat, and
mouse are just as truly interlopers in England as in the United States
and Australia, having moved thither apparently within historic times,
the rabbit from North Africa, the others from southern Asia; and one
could no more generalize upon the comparative weakness of the American
fauna from these cases of intruders than one could generalize from
them upon the comparative weakness of the British, German, and French
wild animals. Our wood mouse or deer mouse retreats before the
ordinary house mouse in exactly the same way that the European wood
mouse does, and not a whit more. Our big wood rat stands in the same
relation to the house rat. Casting aside these cases, it seems to me,
looking at the mammals, that it would be quite impossible to
generalize as to whether those of the Old or the New World are more
fecund, are the fiercest, the hardiest, or the strongest. A great many
cases could be cited on both sides. Our moose and caribou are, in
certain of their varieties, rather larger than the Old World forms of
the same species. If there is any difference between the beavers of
the two countries, it is in the same direction. So with the great
family of the field mice. The largest true arvicola seems to be the
yellow-cheeked mouse of Hudson's Bay, and the biggest representative
of the family on either continent is the muskrat. In most of its
varieties the wolf of North America seems to be inferior in strength
and courage to that of northern Europe and Asia; but the direct
reverse is true with the grizzly bear, which is merely a somewhat
larger and fiercer variety of the common European brown bear. On the
whole, the Old World bison, or so-called aurochs, appears to be
somewhat more formidable than its American brother; but the difference
against the latter is not anything like as great as the difference in
favor of the American wapiti, which is nothing but a giant
representative of the comparatively puny European stag. So with the
red fox. The fox of New York is about the size of that of France, and
inferior in size to that of Scotland; the latter in turn is inferior
in size to the big fox of the upper Missouri, while the largest of all
comes from British America. There is no basis for the belief that the
red fox was imported here from Europe; its skin was a common article
of trade with the Canadian fur traders from the earliest times. On the
other hand, the European lynx is much bigger than the American. The
weasels afford cases in point, showing how hard it is to make a
general law on the subject. The American badger is very much smaller
than the European, and the American otter very much larger than the
European otter. Our pine marten, or sable, compared with that of
Europe, shows the very qualities of which you speak; that is, its
skull is slenderer, the bones are somewhat lighter, the teeth less
stout, the form showing more grace and less strength. But curiously
enough this is reversed, with even greater emphasis, in the minks of
the two continents, the American being much the largest and strongest,
with stouter teeth, bigger bones, and a stronger animal in every way.
The little weasel is on the whole smaller here, while the big weasel,
or stoat, is, in some of its varieties at least, largest on this side;
and, of the true weasels, the largest of all is the so-called fisher,
a purely American beast, a fierce and hardy animal which habitually
preys upon as hard fighting a creature as the raccoon, and which could
eat all the Asiatic and European varieties of weasels without an
effort.
"About birds I should be far less competent to advance arguments, and
especially, my dear sir, to you; but it seems to me that two of the
most self-asserting and hardiest of our families of birds are the
tyrant flycatchers, of which the kingbird is chief, and the
blackbirds, or grackles, with the meadow lark at their head, both
characteristically American.
"Did you ever look over the medical statistics of the half million men
drafted during the Civil War? They include men of every race and
color, and from every country of Europe, and from every State in the
Union; and so many men were measured that the average of the
measurements is probably pretty fair. From these it would appear that
the physical type in the Eastern States had undoubtedly degenerated.
The man from New York or New England, unless he came from the
lumbering districts, though as tall as the Englishman or Irishman, was
distinctly lighter built, and especially was narrower across the
chest; but the finest men physically of all were the Kentuckians and
Tennesseeans. After them came the Scandinavians, then the Scotch, then
the people from several of the Western States, such as Wisconsin and
Minnesota, then the Irish, then the Germans, then the English, etc.
The decay of vitality, especially as shown in the decreasing fertility
of the New England and, indeed, New York stock, is very alarming; but
the most prolific peoples on this continent, whether of native or
foreign origin, are the native whites of the southern Alleghany
region in Kentucky and Tennessee, the Virginians, and the Carolinians,
and also the French of Canada.
"It will be difficult to frame a general law of fecundity in comparing
the effects upon human life of long residence on the two continents
when we see that the Frenchman in Canada is healthy and enormously
fertile, while the old French stock is at the stationary point in
France, the direct reverse being the case when the English of Old and
of New England are compared, and the decision being again reversed if
we compare the English with the mountain whites of the Southern
States."