THE PRESIDENT IN THE BEAR COUNTRY
From stereograph, copyright 1905, by Underwood & Underwood, New York
"Let's go run that bird down," said the President to me.
So off we started across a small, open, snow-streaked plain, toward the woods beyond it. We soon decided that the bird was on the top of one of a group of tall spruces. After much skipping about over logs and rocks, and much craning of our necks, we made him out on the peak of a spruce. I imitated his call, when he turned his head down toward us, but we could not make out what he was.
"Why did we not think to bring the glasses?" said the President.
"I will run and get them," I replied.
"No," said he, "you stay here and keep that bird treed, and I will fetch them."
So off he went like a boy, and was very soon back with the glasses. We quickly made out that it was indeed an owl,—the pigmy owl, as it turned out,—not much larger than a bluebird. I think the President was as pleased as if we had bagged some big game. He had never seen the bird before.
Throughout the trip I found his interest in bird life very keen, and his eye and ear remarkably quick. He usually saw the bird or heard its note as quickly as I did,—and I had nothing else to think about, and had been teaching my eye and ear the trick of it for over fifty years. Of course, his training as a big-game hunter stood him in good stead, but back of that were his naturalist's instincts, and his genuine love of all forms of wild life.