Editorial 



153 



2^irti=1tore 



A Bi-Monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



ContributingEditor.MABELOSGOODAAARIGHT 



Published by D. APPLETON & CO. 



Vol. XXIII Published June 1. 1921 No. 3 



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Price in the United States, one dollar and fifty cents a year; 

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COPYRIGHTED, igzl, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto: 

 A Bird in the Busb Is Worth Two in the Hand 



Few authors have been more intimately 

 associated with their haunts than was John 

 Burroughs with 'Riverby' and 'Slabsides,' 

 and 'Woodchuck Lodge.' Among the 

 thousands of his friends who have visited 

 him at one or more of these places, there 

 are doubtless few who have not hoped that 

 they would be preserved as shrines for the 

 Burroughs' lovers of this, as well as of future 

 generations. It would indeed seem like the 

 violation of a sacred trust to permit 

 'Slabsides,' for example, to crumble into 

 ruins, and the little valley in which it 

 stands become a neglected waste of brush 

 and weeds. Nor can one accept the thought 

 of its becoming the home of someone whose 

 energies were devoted solely to the grow- 

 ing of celery and onions. 



Gilbert White's home at Selborne is 

 now the residence of a manufacturer who 

 has closed it to the public. White died in 

 1793, and, as year by year his fame grows 

 and the lesson of his life becomes more 

 potent, one realizes that his home should 

 have been for all time open to his followers. 



So, too. Burroughs' audience will in- 

 crease, and though we shall never again 

 see the almost endless line of pilgrims who 

 sought his cordial handclasp and kindly 

 greeting, so long as his haunts exist, so 

 long will they be a Mecca to those who will 

 find John Burroughs living forever in his 

 works. 



As a token of our love for Burroughs, as 

 a tribute to his memory, and as a duty to 

 posterity, it is clear that we of today 



should spare no effort to acquire and pre- 

 serve that portion of his estate to which 

 the nature-lovers of all times seem the 

 rightful heirs. 



Animated by this thought, some forty 

 of Mr. Burroughs' friends met at the 

 American Museum of Natural History on 

 the afternoon of April 15, to consider the 

 desirability of forming a Burroughs' 

 Memorial Association. The meeting was 

 addressed by Julian Burroughs, Mr. Bur- 

 roughs' son and heir, by Dr. Clara Barrus, 

 his literary executor, by Judge A. T. Clear- 

 water, of Kingston, N. Y., executor of his 

 estate, by Hamlin Garland and others, all 

 of whom endorsed the object for which the 

 meeting had been called. After a discus- 

 sion of ways and means, a committee of 

 nine was appointed to draft a constitution 

 and by-laws, and proceed with the organ- 

 ization and incorporation of the Associa- 

 tion. While the first object of this Associa- 

 tion will be the acquisition of Mr. Bur- 

 roughs' homes, it is conceivable that it may 

 exert a wide influence in promoting that 

 friendship with nature which was the es- 

 sence of Burroughs' message to mankind. 

 Provision, for example, may be made for 

 Junior Memberships and for the forma- 

 tion of chapters or branches in the schools, 

 and for the observance of April 3, Mr. Bur- 

 roughs' birthday, as Burroughs Day, in 

 the schools as well as among nature-lovers 

 everywhere. 



John Burroughs left the world not only 

 a written record of his life, but he left an 

 example of it; and this example, as a 

 demonstration of the doctrine he preached, 

 is no less precious than his written word 

 itself. Burroughs, the man, will become, 

 therefore, an object of increasing interest 

 to those who will know him only through 

 his books, and anything that we can do to 

 preserve the scenes among which he lived 

 and of which he wrote, will add immeasur- 

 ably to the value of the legacy with which 

 he has so richly endowed the world. 



Information in regard to the Burroughs 

 Memorial Association may be obtained 

 from Dr. G. Clyde Fisher, secretary of the 

 committee for organization, at the Ameri- 

 can Museum of Natural History. 



