above the Hudson, at Riverby, West Park, where he has lived for nearly half a century, and Slabsides, his tree-shaded chestnut-barked work cabin on a nearby hill, are places of pilgrimage for children, poets, wise men. "Nature lovers?" said a visitor. "Yes, and John Burroughs lovers, too."

"The whole gospel of my books," wrote the sage of Slabsides, most distinguished of living American naturalists, "is 'Stay at home; see the wonderful and the beautiful in the simple things all about you; make the most of the common and the near at hand.'" Herein we have the keynote of the enduring charm that distinguishes all the Burroughs books about bursting buds, birds, butterflies, leaves, and the seasons' graces. Said Walt Whitman of a letter written to him by Mr. Burroughs, "It is a June letter, worthy of June; written in John's best out-door mood. I sit here, helpless as I am, and breathe it in like fresh air."

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY PIRIE MACDONALD NEW YORK
ERNEST THOMPSON SETON
COURTESY OF THE WOODCRAFT LEAGUE

Ernest Thompson Seton, Nature illustrator and writer, was born in South Shields, England, in the year 1860. At five years of age his parents moved to Canada and established a home in the backwoods. He was educated in the public schools and the Collegiate Institute of Toronto, and later attended the Royal Academy in London. On the plains of Manitoba, Canada, he studied natural history, and became so efficient that he was appointed official naturalist to the Government of Manitoba. Between the years 1886 and 1891 he published two books on the mammals and birds of the northern province.

Following a period of art study in Paris, Mr. Seton became one of the illustrators of the Century Dictionary. Besides illustrating many books about birds and animals and writing the text, he has contributed numerous articles to leading magazines, and has delivered more than three thousand lectures on natural history subjects. Practically all of this author's books are contributions to natural history. His "Life Histories of Northern Animals" is a popular treatise on a scientific basis, of which Theodore Roosevelt said, "I regard your work as one of the most valuable contributions any naturalist has made to the life histories of American mammals."

The writer made his first popular appeal in "Wild Animals I Have Known," which ran through ten editions in one year and has now an established place in animal literature. Mr. Seton is a man of many sides and sympathies. Probably no one person has had a more profound influence on the boys of America than he, for he has taught the philosophy of out-door life and has been a pioneer in such work. Someone has used the term, "Nature Apostle," to express the motive of his activity. He has made the things of the out-of-doors attractively real to the man in the street, as well as to the child. Mr. Seton likes the woods. He likes to make things, to teach and demonstrate Woodcraft with groups of boys. He comes to town when he must, but he is happiest at "Dewinton," near Greenwich, Connecticut, where he and his wife have developed an estate comprising buildings, gardens, woods, a lake and bridges of rare interest and charm. All is unique. Mr. Seton planned the buildings, wrote the specifications and superintended the building.

Much that Seton has written has exploited the Indian—the ideal Indian—as the first American, presenting him in the most attractive fashion, and setting before the youth of the land the skill of the Indian in handicrafts and woodcraftsmanship. He has not only popularized things that have to do with the open air in America: he was the first man anywhere to organize in practical manner a definite form of out-door activity for boys. This he did in 1902 when he founded the Woodcraft Indians. The principles of self-government with adult guidance, of competition against time and space, were first laid down by him in those days. Later he became Chief Scout of the Boy Scouts of America. In 1916 he organized the Woodcraft League of America, to carry out the general ideals of his early work: "Something to know, something to do, something to enjoy in the woods and always with an eye to character." Chief of the Woodcraft League, he says, "Woodcraft is lifecraft." This organization admits boys and girls, men and women, and aims to carry over into old age the real play spirit on the playgrounds of Mother Nature. As a boy he hungered for Nature knowledge, but he had no books to guide him, and he declared that if ever he had the opportunity he would give to children what he did not have. In the preface of his "Two Little Savages," he says, "Because I have known the torment of thirst I would dig a well where others may drink."

Mr. Seton works as hard in building some simple thing for a game for a boys' camp as in seeking facts about Nature or planning a house. But above all he likes to personalize the animals, the birds, the trees, the winds and the seasons with his pen and in his talks about Nature. And because he loves and understands them he makes them real to others, so that they love them too. Some of the books that have carried his name wherever Nature literature has readers are, besides those already mentioned: "The Biography of a Grizzly," "Lobo, Rag and Vixen," "Lives of the Hunted," "Drag and Johnny Bear," "Animal Heroes," "Biography of a Silver Fox," "Rolf in the Woods," and "Wild Animals at Home."

American Naturalists

By ERNEST INGERSOLL

Author of "Nature's Calendar," "Wild Life of Orchard and Field," "Wild Neighbors,"
"Art of the Wild," "Animal Competitors," and other Nature Books.

Photograph by Press Illustrating Service, Inc. JOHN BURROUGHS AT THE DOOR OF "SLABSIDES" His study on the hill above his home at West Park, New York

MENTOR GRAVURES JOHN J. AUDUBON J. LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ HENRY DAVID THOREAU JOHN MUIR JOHN BURROUGHS ERNEST THOMPSON SETON

In the sense of its attractive description and interpretation, as distinguished from its coldly scientific study, the literature of natural history in the United States is a modern development. Americans were intensely engaged in the earlier years of their history in practical affairs. A large proportion of them were pioneers who were too much occupied in subduing the wilderness and its harmful denizens to civilized purposes to be interested in its beauties. Undoubtedly there were "Nature lovers" even then. The poetry of James Hillhouse (1754-1832), and the fact that