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Sierra Club Bulletin 



who, having been warned of the hardships to be expected on a whaling 

 vessel, insisted upon shipping "for the adventure of the thing, because 

 he wanted to go," and then made at least two desperate attempts to 

 desert. However, the book is well worth reading for its excellent de- 

 scriptions of the habits of whales, seal, walrus, and polar bears, as well 

 as accounts of adventures in bagging them. Homer T. Miller 



Field AND Another welcome book has come to us from John Bur- 

 Study* roughs in Field and Study. The book has two parts, of 

 which the first and larger is taken up by Mr. Burroughs' 

 characteristic and inimitable sketches of plant and animal life. Birds 

 come in here for the predominant share of his attention — birds in all 

 phases, nesting, mating, migrating. But plants, insects, wild animals, 

 and even friend dog, are also presented to us. In all these sketches we 

 find Mr. Burroughs the close observer of the facts of nature, who pur- 

 sues his inquiries with sympathy and imagination, so that we get from 

 him accurate knowledge which is a pleasure in the acquiring. Under 

 his virile touch the search for a bird's-nest is like the hunt for a treas- 

 ure island. He says : "Nature lore is a mixture of love and knowledge, 

 and it comes more by way of the heart than of the head." It is per- 

 haps because of this attitude that John Burroughs has achieved his 

 impressive position in the realm of nature study. But it is equally a 

 pleasure to read these sketches on account of their style, limpid clear 

 and beautiful. 



In the latter portion of the volume Mr. Burroughs discusses various 

 broad topics, such as literature, religion, evolution, etc. An illuminat- 

 ing appraisal of his friend, Walt Whitman, is the best of this section. 

 In treating his other topics, Mr. Burroughs is usually content to raise 

 fundamental questions without endeavoring to give answers, a method 

 not wholly satisfactory. ^ ^ W. W. Lyman, Jr. 



Adventures This book by S. Hall Young, the owner of John Muir's 

 IN ALASKAf little "Stickeen," is a collection of eight stories of actual 

 adventure in Alaska, both at Nome and in the Klondyke. 

 The author is a minister who has spent forty years of his life in Alaska, 

 meeting the need which such a new land of wild life and adventure 

 must have for the missionary. The stories are interesting, well told, and 

 wholesome; the descriptions are good, and one feels upon reading these 

 episodes of real life that the author truly understood his work, was 

 remarkably successful in it, and that the purpose and hope of his little 

 book, to "afford healthy-minded young people a true idea of some 

 phases of human and animal life there" (in Alaska), has been achieved. 

 Daisymay Huber 



* Field and Study. By John Burroughs. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 

 and New York. Price, $1.50 net. 



f Adventures in Alaska. By S. Hall Young. Illustrated. F. H. Revell Com- 

 pany. 1 919. Pages, 181. Price, $1.25 net. 



