AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



There is no commonplace; the most dully monotonous 

 environment is full of wonders, if vision can be enlarged to 

 apprehend them. J. Henri Fabre, that astute French naturalist 

 whose portrayal of the interesting lives of the humble denizens 

 of field and forest we are all reading with avidity, saw more of 

 the marvelous in his own back yard than the average globe- 

 trotter sees in all his travels. Slabsides was but a poor shack 

 in an ordinary farm wood lot. The pond at Walden has its 

 duplicate in the outskirts of a thousand American villages. 

 But John Burroughs and Henry D. Thoreau had eyes to see, 

 ears to hear, and hearts to understand. 



Fortunately there is an ever-increasing number of persons, 

 both young and old, who are learning what fascination there is 

 in the tales Nature spreads before our eyes in hill and dale, 

 river and forest, bird and beast, flower and blade of grass. 

 They are learning to read the landscape, to achieve a companion- 

 ship in the outdoors quite as real and as satisfying as that of a 

 wise friend or a stimulating book. For such this book is written 

 as an aid to an understanding of familiar surroundings. 



It is hoped the volume may serve as an advanced general 

 science, particularly for those teachers who believe that science 

 instruction at its best is an attempt to interpret the significance 

 of the commonplace. It craves audience, too, of all those 

 nature-lovers who desire an introduction to the study of the 

 things about them as one means of culture. The several type 

 regions are treated in separate chapters so that one may take it 

 as a companion into the Dunes, the forest, the prairie, the river 

 valley and learn by means of the brief descriptions and illustra- 

 tions to identify the plants, animals, and physiographic processes 

 encountered, and appreciate something of their meaning. 



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