RAMBLES OF A CANADIAN 
NATURALIST 
AN OPENING WORD 
Little straggling patches of shrubbery and lingering 
trees that hide timidly in the shadow of a great city, 
streams destined for imprisonment in long dungeons 
beneath the paved and crowded streets, marshes 
striving in richness of verdure to convert each year's 
decay into new and healthy life, all tempt the rambler 
to push his way about and linger over the intricate 
and changing panorama* 
The few miles that bound a morning's ramble seem 
so limited and circumscribing, and yet so vast — so 
crowded with an infinitude of nature's activities. 
Let us look, let us listen, let us breathe the enriched 
air. Myriad forms of the mystery of life crowd upon 
the senses made keen by the silence. Rambles merge 
imperceptibly into ramblings, and the little clumps 
of brushwood seem peopled with the wild things that 
have long since taken their departure to the secluded 
shades of the distant and retreating wilderness. 
This is not that blending of fact and fancy which 
