PREFACE. 



WHEN these sketches were first 

 published, the author had no 

 more thought of preserving them in book 

 form, than the brown thrush thinks of re- 

 cording the things that he says to his 

 mate from the bending tip-top of a white 

 birch in June. They were penned in 

 spare moments to please the little coterie 

 of friends who gather about my open fire- 

 place in the long winter evenings, where 

 the largest bass fails to escape from the 

 hook, and where the bear makes his most 

 furious onslaught. There was a pleasure 

 also in fixing certain thoughts in definite 

 form so that when fatigued with work and 

 with city surroundings I could turn to an 

 old paper and find that I really had 

 thought of nice things once. 



Then again there was a feeling that the 



