Hunting Lore 275 



dear. His books make us homesick when we read 

 them in foreign lands ; for they spring from our soil 

 as truly as "Snowbound" or "The Biglow Papers." * 



As a woodland writer, Thoreau comes second only 

 to Burroughs. 



For natural history in the narrower sense there 

 are still no better books than Audubon and Bach- 

 man's Mammals and Audubon's Birds. There are 

 also good works by men like Coues and Bendire; 

 and if Hart Merriam, of the Smithsonian, will only 

 do for the mammals of the United States what he 

 has already done for those of the Adirondacks, we 

 shall have the best book of its kind in existence. 

 Nor, among less technical writings, should one over- 

 look such essays as those of Maurice Thompson and 

 Olive Thorne Miller. 



There have been many American hunting-books; 



* I am under many obligations to the writings of Mr. Bur- 

 roughs (though there are one or two of his theories from 

 which I should dissent) ; and there is a piece of indebtedness 

 in this very volume of which I have only just become aware. 

 In my chapter on the prong-buck there is a paragraph which 

 will at once suggest to any lover of Burroughs some sen- 

 tences in his essay on "Birds and Poets." I did not notice 

 the resemblance until happening to reread the essay after my 

 own chapter was written, and at the time I had no idea that 

 I was borrowing from anybody, the more so as I was think- 

 ing purely of Western wilderness life and Western wilderness 

 game, with which I knew Mr. Burroughs had never been fa- 

 miliar. I have concluded to leave the paragraph in with this 

 acknowledgment. 



