p him name
his birds. I stayed with him at the White House the night before we
started. I remember that at dinner[1] there was an officer from the
British army stationed in India, and the talk naturally turned on Indian
affairs. I did not take part in it because I knew nothing about India,
but Roosevelt was so conversant with Indian affairs and Indian history
that you would think he had just been cramming on it, which I knew very
well he had not. But that British officer was put on his mettle to hold
his own. In fact, Roosevelt knew more about India and England's relation
to it than the officer seemed to know. It was amazing to see the
thoroughness of his knowledge about India.

[1] Mr. Burroughs's memory played him false here. The
incident he speaks of was at a dinner in the White House,
just before starting on the Yellowstone trip, in 1903.
C. B.

The next morning we started off for Virginia, taking an early train.

Pine Knot is about one hundred miles from Washington. I think we left
the train at Charlottesville, Virginia, and drove about ten miles to
Pine Knot; the house is a big barnlike structure on the edge of the
woods, a mile from the nearest farmhouse.

Before we reached there we got out of the wagon and walked, as there
were a good many warblers in the trees--the spring migration was on. It
was pretty warm; I took off my overcoat and the President insisted on
carrying it. We identified several warblers there, among them the
black-poll, the black-throated blue, and Wilson's black-cap. He knew
them in the trees overhead as quickly as I did.

We reached Pine Knot late in the afternoon, but as he was eager for a
walk we started off, he leading, as if walking for a wager. We went
through fields and woods and briers and marshy places for a mile or
more, when we stopped and mopped our brows and turned homeward without
having seen many birds.

Mrs. Roosevelt took him to task, I think, when she saw the heated
condition in which we returned, for not long afterwards he came to me
and said: "Oom John, that was no way to go after birds; we were in too
much of a hurry." I replied, "No, Mr. President, that isn't the way I
usually go a-birding." His thirst for the wild and the woods, and his
joy at returning to these after his winter in the White House, had
evidently urged him on. He added, "We will try a different plan
to-morrow."

So on the morrow we took a leisurely drive along the highways. Very soon