PREFA TOR Y. v {{ 



description of a bird or flower, when they are 

 both before us ? It seems incredible that any 

 one should be better pleased with another's im- 

 pressions, however cunningly told, than with 

 those of his own senses. It is a strange mental 

 condition that can delight in the story of a bird, 

 and yet have no desire to see the creature ; to be 

 a witness to all the marvelous cunning that this 

 bird exhibits. Few are those among us whose 

 outings cover a lifetime ; and when the happy 

 days of freedom come to us, let books be kept 

 behind, and with untrammeled eyes and ears let 

 us drink in the knowledge that comes to us at no 

 other time. Summer is all too short a season for 

 other occupation than enthusiastic sight-seeing 

 and sound-hearing, 



Long before autumn most of us must be 

 back to the busy town. Business demands our 

 work-day hours ; and now, during the leisure of 

 long winter evenings, with what delight one 

 may recall vacation-days, reading outdoor books ! 

 The library now becomes the mountain, lake, or 

 river. With Thoreau, Burroughs, or Jeffries at 

 hand, one can hear the summer birds in the 

 shrill whistle of the wind, and the babbling of 

 summer brooks in the rattle of icy rain. 



For permission to reprint, in this collected 

 form, the brief essays here brought together, the 

 author is indebted to Messrs. Harper & Bros., 



