Details
ROOSEVELT, THEODORE, President Autograph letter signed in full, to the naturalist and conservationist William Temple Hornaday, "On Safari," [in East Africa], 16 October 1909. 1 1/2 pages, 4to, boldly written in pencil on yellow foolscap paper (perhaps all that was available at the time?). Good condition.
BIG-GAME HUNTING
"If you say I've got to come to the Campfire Club dinner, why it's a case of 'hands up' -- and I'll come of course. But can't it be made a private dinner, not reported by a press which wouldn't in the least understand any speech I made to my fellow naturalists & sportsmen? I have an Oryx head and a Grant's gazelle head for you, if they will meet your requirements. I haven't been been trying for 'record' heads; I have been getting good fair specimens of the big game, enough for good groups...."
Hornaday (1854-1937), a taxidermist and field naturalist, had been since 1896 the first Director of the New York Zoological Society; he was a vigorous and determined campaigner for wildlife conservation. The letter seems to suggest that Roosevelt had been asked by his friend to collect specimens for taxidermy, to be mounted in static displays.
BIG-GAME HUNTING
"If you say I've got to come to the Campfire Club dinner, why it's a case of 'hands up' -- and I'll come of course. But can't it be made a private dinner, not reported by a press which wouldn't in the least understand any speech I made to my fellow naturalists & sportsmen? I have an Oryx head and a Grant's gazelle head for you, if they will meet your requirements. I haven't been been trying for 'record' heads; I have been getting good fair specimens of the big game, enough for good groups...."
Hornaday (1854-1937), a taxidermist and field naturalist, had been since 1896 the first Director of the New York Zoological Society; he was a vigorous and determined campaigner for wildlife conservation. The letter seems to suggest that Roosevelt had been asked by his friend to collect specimens for taxidermy, to be mounted in static displays.