During the winter of 1907 and early in the following year Selous devoted himself to finishing his book "African Nature Notes and Reminiscences" (published by Macmillan & Co. in 1908), a work which he wrote principally at the instigation of his friend, Theodore Roosevelt. In this he devotes the first two chapters to his views on protective coloration and the influence of environment on living organisms. For lucidity and accuracy of treatment he never wrote anything better or more clearly discounted the views of theoretical naturalists. It is a model of conclusive argument backed by sound data. Commenting on his remarks Ex-President Roosevelt thus gives his opinions on the subject (November 1st, 1912):—
"It is a misfortune that in England and America the naturalists should at the moment have gotten into an absolutely fossilized condition of mind about such things as protective coloration. Both the English and the American scientific periodicals are under the control of men like Professor Poulton and others who treat certain zoological dogmas from a purely fetichistic standpoint, exactly as if they were mediæval theologians. This is especially true of their attitude toward the doctrine of natural selection, and incidentally toward protective coloration. There is much in natural selection; there is much in protective coloration. But neither can be used to one-twentieth the extent that the neo-Darwinians, such as Mr. Wallace and the rest, have used them; indeed these neo-Darwinians have actually confused the doctrine of natural selection with the doctrine of evolution itself.
"Heller is coming home soon. He has just written me from Berlin, where he saw our friend Matzchie who, you doubtless remember, has split up the African buffalo into some twenty different species, based on different curves of the horns. Matzchie told Heller that he had read my statement that of the four bulls I shot feeding together near the Nairobi Falls, the horns, according to Matzchie's theory, showed that there were at least two and perhaps three different species (among these four bulls from the same herd). Well, Matzchie absolutely announces that doubtless there were two species among them, because the locality is on the border-line between two distinct types of buffalo, that of Kenia and that of the Athi! I think this is one of the most delightful examples of the mania for species-splitting that I have ever seen. On the same basis Matzchie might just as well divide the African buffalo into a hundred species as into twenty; and as for the elephant he could make a new species for every hundred square miles.
"Apparently your 'African Nature Notes' was 'hoodooed' by my introduction and the dedication to me; but I cannot help hoping that you will now publish a book giving your experiences in East Africa and up the White Nile. Without the handicap of my introduction, I think it would do well! Seriously, the trouble with your 'African Nature Notes' is that it is too good. The ideal hunting-book ought not to be a simple record of slaughter; it ought to be good from the literary standpoint and good from the standpoint of the outdoor naturalist as well as from the standpoint of the big game hunter. Stigand's books fulfil both the latter requirements, but he has not your power to write well and interestingly, and he has a rather morbid modesty or self-consciousness which makes him unable to tell simply and as a matter of course the really absorbingly interesting personal adventures with which he has met. Unfortunately, however, the average closet naturalist usually wants to read an utterly dry little book by some closet writer, and does not feel as if a book by a non-professional was worth reading—for instance, I was interested in London to find two or three of my scientific friends, who knew nothing whatever about protective coloration in the field, inclined to take a rather sniffy view of your absolutely sound and, in the real sense, absolutely scientific, statement of the case. On the other hand, the average man who reads hunting-books is too apt to care for nothing at all but the actual account of the hunting or of the travelling, because he himself knows no more about the game than the old Dutch and South African hunters whom you described used to know about the different 'species' of lion and black rhinoceros. Nevertheless I am sure that your 'African Nature Notes' will last permanently as one of the best books that any big game hunter and out-of-doors naturalist has ever written. Charles Sheldon was saying exactly this to me the other day. By the way, I hope he will soon write something about his experiences in Alaska. They are well worth writing about. I am much irritated because Shiras, some of whose pictures I once sent you, will not make any use of his extraordinary mass of notes and photographs of American wild game and the rarer creatures of the American forests and mountains.
"I am sending you herewith a rather long pamphlet I have published on the subject of protective coloration. Thayer answered the appendix to my 'African Game Trails,' in a popular Science Monthly article, re-stating and amplifying his absurdities. Men like Professor Poulton treat him with great seriousness, and indeed Professor Poulton is himself an extremist on this subject. I thought it would be worth while going into the subject more at length, and accordingly did so in the bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, and I send you a copy. I shall also send one to Stigand. Do write me about your experiences."
Roosevelt was in a measure responsible for this excellent book, and it was due to his encouragement that Selous undertook its publication. He sent it in parts to his friend, who thus summarizes the author's literary style:—
"I have been delighted with all the pieces you sent me, and have read and re-read them all. Do go on with your lion article. I earnestly wish you would now write a book describing a natural history of big game. You are the only man alive, so far as I know, who could do it. Take S.'s book, for instance, which you sent me. It is an excellent book in its way, but really it is only a kind of guide-book. The sole contribution to natural history which it contains is that about the wolves and the big sheep. But you have the most extraordinary power of seeing things with minute accuracy of detail, and then the equally necessary power to describe vividly and accurately what you have seen. I read S.'s book, and I have not the slightest idea how the sheep or the ibex or the deer look; but after reading your articles I can see the lions, not snarling but growling, with their lips covering their teeth, looking from side to side as one of them seeks to find what had hurt it, or throwing up its tail stiff in the air as it comes galloping forward in the charge. I can see the actual struggle as the lion kills a big ox or cow buffalo. I can see the buffalo bulls trotting forward, stupid and fierce-looking, but not dangerous unless molested, while they gaze from under their brow-armour of horn at the first white man they have ever seen. I can see wild hounds, with their ears pricked forward, leaping up above the grass to see what had shot at the buffalo they were chasing.
"I was immensely interested in your description of these same wild hounds. And what a lesson you incidentally give as to the wisdom of refraining from dogmatizing about things that observers see differently. That experience of yours about running into the pack of wild hounds, which, nevertheless, as you point out, often run down antelopes that no horse can run down, is most extraordinary. I am equally struck by what you say as to the men who have run down cheetahs on horseback. Judging from what Sir Samuel Baker saw for instance, cheetahs must be able to go at least two feet to a horse's one for half a mile or so. I wonder if it is not possible that the men who succeeded in running them down were able to get a clear chase of two or three miles so as to wind them. If different observers had recorded the two sets of facts you give as to the speed of the wild hounds under different conditions, a great many people would have jumped to the conclusion that one of the two observers, whose stories seemed mutually contradictory, must have been telling what was not so.
"Let me thank you again for the real pleasure you have given me by sending me these articles. Now do go on and write that book. Buxton and I and a great many other men can write ordinary books of trips in which we kill a few sheep or goat or bear or elk or deer; but nobody can write the natural history of big game as you can."
Selous' intimacy with the President was of that charming character which unfortunately we now only associate with early Victorian days. They wrote real letters to one another of that heart-to-heart nature which only two men absorbed in similar tastes, and actuated by a similar intellectual outlook, can send as tributes of mind to mind. Such letters are ever a joy to the recipient; but once Selous seems to have over-expressed his concern, when the President was attacked and wounded by a would-be assassin. The answer is both characteristic and amusing.