x INTRODUCTION 



the things around you, read about those things for 

 information, and in your journeys afield fill in the 

 gaps with whatever it is that completes your land- 

 scape, or rounds out your cycle of the seasons, or 

 links up your endless chain of life. 



While I have tried to be accurate throughout these 

 books, still it has not been my object chiefly to write 

 a natural history volumes of outdoor facts; but 

 to quicken the imaginations behind the sharp eyes, 

 behind the keen ears and the eager souls of the mul- 

 titude of children who go to school, as I used to go 



& ~ o 



to school, through an open, stirring, beckoning world 

 of living things that I longed to range and under- 

 stand. 



The best thing that I can do as writer, that you 

 can do as teacher, if I may quote from the last para- 

 graph the keynote of these volumes is to " go 

 into the fields and woods, go deep and far and fre- 

 quently, with eyes and ears and all your souls alert," 



MULLEIN HILL, May, 1912 



