Now that I am on the subject of dress I may as well mention that the dress of the inhabitants up to ten years of age is nothing. After that they put on a shirt descended from some remote ancestor, and never take it off till the day of their death. Mother is recovering from an attack of indigestion, but the rest are all well and send love to you and our friends, in which I join sincerely, and remain, Your Most Affectionate Nephew, T. ROOSEVELT, JR. The adoration of his little sister for the erudite “Teedie” is shown in every letter, especially in the letters to their mutual little friend “Edie.” On January 25 this admiration is summed up in a postscript which says: “Teedie is out shooting now. He is quite professionist [no higher praise could apparently be given than this remarkable word] in shooting, skinning and stuffing, and he is so satisfied.” This expression seems to sum up the absolute sense of well-being during that wonderful winter of the delicate boy, who, in spite of his delicacy, always achieved his heart’s desire. In the efforts of his little sister to be a worthy companion, I find in my diary, written that same winter of the Nile, one abortive struggle on my own part to become a naturalist. On the page at the end of my journal I write in large letters: NATURAL HISTORY “QUAIL “Ad. near Alexandria, Egypt, November 27th, 1872. Length 5--Expanse 13.0 Wings 5 Tail 1.3--Bill 5. Tarsus 1.2 Middle Toe 1.1 Hind Toe .3.” Under these mystic signs is a more elaborate and painstaking description of the above bird. I can see my brother now giving me a serious lecture on the subject, and trying to inspire a mind at that time securely closed to all such interests--to open at least a crack of its reluctant door, for “Teedie” felt that to walk with blind eyes in a world of such fluttering excitement as was made for him by the birds of the air showed an innate depravity which he wished with all his soul to cure in his beloved little sister. At the end of my description of the quail I fall by the wayside, and only once again make an excursion into the natural history of the great land of Egypt; only once more do I struggle with the description of a bird called this time by the curious name of “Ziczac.” (Could this be “Zigzag,” or was it simply my childish mind that zigzagged in its painful efforts to follow the impossible trail of my elder brother?) In my account of this, to say the least, unusual bird I remark: “Tarsus not finished.” Whether _I_ have not finished the tarsus, or whether the bird itself had an arrested development of some kind, I do not explain; and on the blank page opposite this final effort in scientific adventure I finish, as I began, by the words “_Natural History_,” and underneath them, to explain my own unsuccessful efforts, I write: “My Brother, Theodore Roosevelt, Esq.” Whether I had decided that all natural