260 THE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



scarcely suppose that any man who cares for 

 existence outside the cities would willingly be 

 without anything that he has ever written. 

 To the naturalist, to the observer and lover 

 of nature, he is of course worth many times 

 more than any closet systematist ; and though 

 he has not been very much in really wild re- 

 gions, his pages so thrill with the sights and 

 sounds of outdoor life that nothing by any 

 writer who is a mere professional scientist or 

 a mere professional hunter can take their place, 

 or do more than supplement them for scien- 

 tist and hunter alike would do well to remem- 

 ber that before a book can take the highest 

 rank in any particular line it must also rank 

 high in literature proper. Of course, for us 

 Americans, Burroughs has a peculiar charm 

 that he cannot have for others, no matter how 

 much they, too, may like him ; for what he 

 writes of is our own, and he calls to our minds 

 memories and associations that are very 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? 



1 1 am under many obligations to the writings of Mr. Burroughs 

 (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 sentences 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 

 thinking purely of western wilderness life and western wilderness 

 game, with whichl knew Mr. Burroughs had never been familiar. 

 I have concluded to leave the paragraph in with this acknowledg- 

 ment. 



