WAKE-ROBIN

THE WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHS

WITH PORTRAITS AND MANY ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

This is mainly a book about the Birds, or more properly an invitation to the study of Ornithology, and the purpose of the author will be carried out in proportion as it awakens and stimulates the interest of the reader in this branch of Natural History.

Though written less in the spirit of exact science than with the freedom of love and old acquaintance, yet I have in no instance taken liberties with facts, or allowed my imagination to influence me to the extent of giving a false impression or a wrong coloring. I have reaped my harvest more in the woods than in the study; what I offer, in fact, is a careful and conscientious record of actual observations and experiences, and is true as it stands written, every word of it. But what has interested me most in Ornithology is the pursuit, the chase, the discovery; that part of it which is akin to hunting, fishing, and wild sports, and which I could carry with me in my eye and ear wherever I went.

I cannot answer with much confidence the poet's inquiry,—

"Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?"

but I have done what I could to bring home the "river and sky" with the sparrow I heard "singing at dawn on the alder bough." In other words, I have tried to present a live bird,—a bird in the woods or the fields,—with the atmosphere and associations of the place, and not merely a stuffed and labeled specimen.

A more specific title for the volume would have suited me better; but not being able to satisfy myself in this direction, I cast about for a word thoroughly in the atmosphere and spirit of the book, which I hope I have found in "Wake-Robin," the common name of the white Trillium, which blooms in all our woods, and which marks the arrival of all the birds.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION TO RIVERSIDE EDITION

In coming before the public with a newly made edition of my writings, what can I say to my reader at this stage of our acquaintance that will lead to a better understanding between us? Probably nothing. We understand each other very well already. I have offered myself as his guide to certain matters out of doors, and to a few matters indoor, and he has accepted me upon my own terms, and has, on the whole been better pleased with me than I had any reason to expect. For this I am duly grateful; why say more? Yet now that I am upon my feet, so as to speak, and palaver is the order, I will keep on a few minutes longer.

It is now nearly a quarter of a century since my first book, "Wake-Robin," was published. I have lived nearly as many years in the world as I had lived when I wrote its principal chapters. Other volumes have followed, and still others. When asked how many there are, I often have to stop and count them up. I suppose the mother of a large family does not have to count up her children to say how many there are. She sees their faces all before her. It is said of certain savage tribes who cannot count above five, and yet who own flocks and herds, that every native knows when he has got all his own cattle, not by counting, but by remembering each one individually.

The savage is with his herds daily; the mother has the love of her children constantly in her heart; but when one's book goes forth from him, in a sense it never returns. It is like the fruit detached from the bough. And yet to sit down and talk of one's books as a father might talk of his sons, who had left his roof and gone forth to make their own way in the world, is not an easy matter. The author's relation to his book is a little more direct and personal, after all, more a matter of will and choice, than a father's relation to his child. The book does not change, and, whatever it fortunes, it remains to the end what its author made it. The son is an evolution out of a long line of ancestry, and one's responsibility of this or that trait is often very slight; but the book is an actual transcript of his mind, and is wise or foolish according as he made it so. Hence I trust my reader will pardon me if I shrink from any discussion of the merits or demerits of these intellectual children of mine, or indulge in any very confidential remarks with regard to them.

I cannot bring myself to think of my books as "works," because so little "work" has gone to the making of them. It has all been play. I have gone a-fishing, or camping, or canoeing, and new literary material has been the result. My corn has grown while I loitered or