INTRODUCTION 



IT has been my aim in the thirty-nine chapters 

 of the three books in this series to carry my 

 readers through the weeks of all the school 

 year, not however as with a calendar, for that would 

 be more or less wooden and artificial ; but by read- 

 ings, rather, that catch in a large way the spirit of 

 the particular season, that give something definite and 

 specific in the way of suggestions for tramps afield 

 with things to look for and hear and do. Naturally 

 many of the birds and animals and flowers mentioned, 

 as well as woods and aspects of sky and field, are 

 those of my own local environment of my New 

 England surrounding and so must differ in some 

 details from those surrounding you in your far South- 

 ern home or you on your distant Pacific coast, or 

 you in your rich and varied valley of the Mississippi, 

 or you on your wide and generous prairie. But the 

 similarities and correspondences, the things and 

 conditions we have in common, are more than our 

 differences. Our sun, moon, sky, earth our land 

 are the same, our love for this beautiful world is 

 the same, as is that touch of nature which we all feel 

 and which makes us all kin. Wherever, then, in these 

 books of the seasons, the things treated differ from 



