WOOD-PUSSIES 



ONE real source of the joy in out-of-door 

 study lies in its off-time character. A 

 serious, bread-winning study of birds must be a 

 lamentable vocation ; it comes to measuring egg- 

 shells merely, and stuffing skins. To get its real 

 tonic, nature study must not be carried on with 

 Walden Pond laboriousness, nor with the unre- 

 lieved persistence of a five years aboard a Beagle. 

 Darwin staggered under the burden of his obser- 

 vations ; and Thoreau says : " I would not have 

 any one adopt my mode of living ; for before he 

 has fairly learned it I may have found out an- 

 other for myself" — and so he did. 



No ; the joy in wild things is the joy of being 

 wild with them— vacation joy. Think of being 

 forced to gather ants and watch spiders for a 

 living ! It would be quite as bad as making 

 poetry or prophecy one's profession. From the 

 day Mohammed formally adopts Koran-making 

 [279] 



