M'-. 



PREFACE. 



The author of this little volume is not a scientist, he is only a 

 nature-lover and he would be astonished and disappointed if every- 

 one should agree with all that he has written. He has found a 

 pleasure in tramping about the woods and the streams, in seeing 

 nature at first hand and an almost equal pleasure in reading of what 

 others have seen and loved. 



It would be nice indeed to give credit where credit is due but 

 where should I begin and where could I end? A father and mother 

 who taught me to see things and to love them, an old half-breed 

 Indian who in my childhood showed me many a sacred spot of 

 earth, an old shoemaker who now in his ninetieth year and "livin' 

 on borrowed time" still has the heart of a ten-year-old, unnum- 

 bered bevies of school children who have followed me "up hill and 

 down dale ' ' giving me a thousand eyes with which to see, Audubon 

 Wilson, Nuttall, Thoreau, Burroughs, Seton and many more may 

 claim a share of whatever of worth there may be within these 

 covers. 



The Author. 



