"Resnick, Mike - Dispatches" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

this specimen for either the American Museum or t he Smithsonian. I'll send you
a copy of my notes, and hopefully a number of photographs taken at various
stages of the post mortem examination and the mounting.

I realize that I was incredibly lucky to have survived. I don't know how many
more such creatures exist here in the jungles of Cuba, but they are too
malevolent to be allowed to survive and wreak their havoc on the innocent locals
here. They must be eradicated, and I know of no hunter with whom I would rather
share this expedition than yourself. I will put my gun and my men at your
disposal, and hopefully we can rid the island of this most unlikely and lethal
aberration.
Yours,
Roosevelt

Letter to Carl Akeley, hunter and taxidermist, c/o The American Museum of
Natural History, July 13, 1898:

Dear Carl:

Sorry to have missed you at the last annual banquet, but as you know, I've been
preoccupied with matters here in Cuba.

Allow me to ask you a purely hypothetical question: could a life form exist that
has no stomach or digestive tract? Let me further hypothesize that this life
form ingests the blood of its prey-- other living creatures-- directly into its
veins.

First, is it possible?

Second, could such a form of nourishment supply sufficient energy to power a
body the size of, say, a grizzly bear?

I realize that you are a busy man, but while I cannot go into detail, I beg you
to give these questions your most urgent attention.
Yours very truly,
Theodore Roosevelt

Letter to Dr. Joel A. Allen, Curator of Birds and Mammals, American Museum of
Natural History, July 13, 1898:

Dear Joel:

I have a strange but, please believe me, very serious question for you.

Can a complex animal life form exist without gender? Could it possibly
reproduce-- don't laugh-- by budding? Could a complex life form reproduce by
splitting apart, as some of our single-celled animals do?

Please give me your answers soonest.
Yours very truly,