class="tdr">34, 35

Initial, Chapter V 36 Initial, Chapter VI 46 “The lantern flickers, the milk foams, the stories flow” 48 Initial, Chapter VII 52 A Coon 54 Quails 55 Shagbarks 56 Wild Sea Fowl 57 Black Hawthorn Berries 58 Initial, Chapter VIII 61 “To-night there is no loafing about the lodge” 62 Tailpiece 66 Initial, Chapter IX 67 A Whitefoot 68 A Chipmunk 70 A Woodchuck 72 Five Days of Life and Plenty for the Birds 74 Initial, Chapter X 76 Initial, Chapter XI 80 “But come, boys, get after those bags!” 84 Initial, Chapter XII 88 A Loon 89 When Night comes 90 A Blue Jay 91 A Red Squirrel 92 A Kinglet 93 Initial, Chapter XIII 96 Wild Geese 102 Tailpiece 103

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NOTE

It is interesting to observe that the subject of the initial for chapter IV is witch-hazel; that for chapter VII, the cocoons of the cecropia, the promethea, and the basket worm; and that for chapter VIII, a sprig of alder, with the old fruit and a budded catkin. The subjects of the other initials require no identification.

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INTRODUCTION

There are three serious charges brought against nature books of the present time, namely, that they are either so dull as to be unreadable, or so fanciful as to be misleading, or so insincere as to be positively harmful. There is a real bottom to each of these charges.

Dull nature-writing is the circumstantial, the detailed, the cataloguing, the semi-scientific sort, dried up like old Rameses and cured for all time with the fine-ground spice of measurements, dates, conditions—observations, so called. For literary purposes, one observation of this kind is better than two. Rarely does the watcher in the woods see anything so new that for itself it is worth recording. It is not what one sees, so much as the manner of the seeing, not the observation but its suggestions that count for interest to the reader. Science wants the exact observation; nature-writing wants the observation exact and the heart of the observer along with it. We want plenty of facts in our nature books, but they have all been set down in order before; what has not been set down before are the author’s thoughts and emotions. These should be new, personal, and are pretty sure therefore to be interesting.

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