est, were now completely transformed to her and afforded her 

 the keenest pleasure; a whole new world of interest had been 

 disclosed to her; she felt as if she was constantly on the eve of 

 some new discovery ; the next turn in the path might reveal to 

 her a new warbler or a new vireo. I remember the thrill she 

 seemed to experience when I called her attention to a purple finch 

 singing in the tree-tops in front of her house, a rare visitant she 

 had not before heard. The thrill would of course have been 

 greater had she identified the bird without my aid. One would 

 rather bag one's own game, whether it be with a bullet or an 

 eyebeam. 



The experience of this lady is the experience of all in whom 

 is kindled this bird enthusiasm. A new interest is added to life ; 

 one more resource against ennui and stagnation. If you have 

 only a city yard with a few sickly trees in it, you will find great 

 delight in noting the numerous stragglers from the great army of 

 spring and autumn migrants that find their way there. If you 

 live in the country, it is as if new eyes and new ears were given 

 you, with a correspondingly increased capacity for rural enjoyment 



The birds link themselves to your memory of seasons and 

 places, so that a song, a call, a gleam of color, set going a 

 sequence of delightful reminiscences in your mind. When a soli- 

 tary great Carolina wren came one August day and took up its 

 abode near me and sang and called and warbled as I had heard it 

 long before on the Potomac, how it brought the old days, the 

 old scenes back again, and made me for the moment younger by 

 all those years! 



A few seasons ago I feared the tribe of bluebirds were on 

 the verge of extinction from the enormous number of them that 

 perished from cold and hunger in the South in the winter of '94. 

 For two summers not a blue wing, not a blue warble. I seemed 

 to miss something kindred and precious from my environment 

 the visible embodiment of the tender sky and the wistful soil. 

 What a loss, I said, to the coming generations of dwellers in the 

 country no bluebird in the spring! What will the farm-boy 

 date from? But the fear was groundless: the birds are regaining 

 their lost ground; broods of young blue-coats are again seen 

 drifting from stake to stake or from mullen-stalk to mullen-stalk 

 about the fields in summer, and our April air will doubtless again 

 be warmed and thrilled by this lovely harbinger of spring. 



JOHN BURROUGHS. 



August 17, 07* 



viii 



