vi Preface. 



This individuality of the wild creatures will account, per- 

 haps, for many of these Ways, which can seem no more 

 curious or startling to the reader than to the writer when he 

 first discovered them. They are, almost entirely, the records 

 of personal observation in the woods and fields. Occasionally, 

 when I know my hunter or woodsman well, I have taken his 

 testimony, but never without weighing it carefully, and prov- 

 ' ing it whenever possible by watching the animal in question 

 for days or weeks till I found for myself that it was all true. 



The sketches are taken almost at random from old note- 

 books and summer journals. About them gather a host of 

 associations, of living-over-agains, that have made it a delight 

 to write them ; associations of the winter woods, of apple 

 blossoms and nest-building, of New England uplands and 

 wilderness rivers, of camps and canoes, of snowshoes and 

 trout rods, of sunrise on the hills, when one climbed for the 

 eagle's nest, and twilight on the yellow wind-swept beaches, 

 where the surf sobbed far away, and wings twanged like reeds 

 in the wind swooping down to decoys, — all thronging about 

 one, eager to be remembered if not recorded. Among them, 

 most eager, most intense, most frequent of all associations, 

 there is a boy with nerves all a-tingle at the vast sweet 

 mystery that rustled in every wood, following the call of the 

 winds and the birds, or wandering alone where the spirit moved 

 him, who never studied nature consciously, but only loved it, 

 and who found out many of these Ways long ago, guided 

 solely by a boy's instinct. 



