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Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Lester Pearson
page 9 of 124 (07%)
than it gave to some of his family. His mother was not well
pleased when she found some young white mice in the ice-chest,
where the founder of the "Roosevelt Museum" was keeping them safe.
She quickly threw them away, and her son, in his indignation, said
that what hurt him about it was "the loss to Science! The loss to
Science!" Once, he and his cousin had been out in the country,
collecting specimens until all their pockets were full. Then two
toads came along,--such novel and attractive toads that room had
to be made for them. Each boy put one toad under his hat, and
started down the road. But a lady, a neighbor, met them, and when
the boys took off their hats, the toads did what any sensible
toads would do, hopped down and away, and so were never added to
the Museum.

The Roosevelt family visited Europe again in 1873, and afterwards
went to Algiers and Egypt, where the air, it was hoped, would help
the boy's asthma. This was a pleasanter trip for him, and the
birds which he saw on the Nile interested him greatly.

His studies of natural history had been carried on in the summers
at Oyster Bay on Long Island, on the Hudson and in the
Adirondacks. They soon became more than a boy's fun, and some of
the observations made when he was fifteen, sixteen or seventeen
years old have found their way into learned books. When the State
of New York published, many years afterwards, two big volumes
about the birds of the state, some of these early writings by
Roosevelt were quoted as important. A friend has given me a four-
page folder printed in 1877, about the summer birds of the
Adirondacks "by Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and H. D. Minot." Part of
the observations were made in 1874 when he was sixteen. Ninety-
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