The Green Roosevelt: Theodore Roosevelt in Appreciation of Wilder ...

A Letter on Bird-life
and Its Protection (1899)

February 16, 1899

Dear Mr. [Frank] Chapman:

I need hardly say how heartily I sympathize with the purpose of the Audubon Society.⁷¹ I would like to see all harmless wild things, but especially all birds, protected in every way. I do not understand how any man or woman who really loves nature can fail to try to exert all influence in support of such objects as those of the Audubon Society. Spring would not be spring without buds and flowers and I only wish that besides protecting the songsters, the birds of the grove, the orchards, the garden and the meadow, we would also protect the birds of the seashore and of the wilderness. The loon ought to be, and under wise legislation could be, a feature of Adirondack lake; ospreys, as everyone knows, can be made the tamest of the tame; and terns should be as plentiful among our shores as swallows around our barns. A tanager or a cardinal makes a