est, were now completely transformed to her and afforded her 
the keenest pleasure; a whole new world of interest had been 
disclosed to her; she felt as if she was constantly on the eve of 
some new discovery ; the next turn in the path might reveal to 
her a new warbler or a new vireo. 1 remember the thrill she 
seemed to experience when 1 called her attention to a purple finch 
singing in the tree-tops in front of her house, a rare visitant she 
had not before heard. The thrill would of course have been 
greater had she identified the bird without my aid. One would 
rather bag one’s own game, whether it be with a bullet or an 
eyebeam. 
The experience of this lady is the experience of all in whom 
is kindled this bird enthusiasm. A new interest is added to life; 
one more resource against ennui and stagnation. If you have 
only a city yard with a few sickly trees in it, you will find great 
delight in noting the numerous stragglers from the great army of 
spring and autumn migrants that find their way there. If you 
live in the country, it is as if new eyes and new ears were given 
you, with a correspondingly increased capacity for rural enjoyment. 
The birds link themselves to your memory of seasons and 
places, so that a song, a call, a gleam of color, set going a 
sequence of delightful reminiscences in your mind. When a soli- 
tary great Carolina wren came one August day and took up its 
abode near me and sang and called and warbled as I had heard it 
long before on the Potomac, how it brought the old days, the 
old scenes back again, and made me for the moment younger by 
all those years! 
A few seasons ago 1 feared the tribe of bluebirds were on 
the verge of extinction from the enormous number of them that 
perished from cold and hunger in the South in the winter of ’94. 
For two summers not a blue wing, not a blue warble. 1 seemed 
to miss something kindred and precious from my environment — 
the visible embodiment of the tender sky and the wistful soil. 
What a loss, 1 said, to the coming generations of dwellers in the 
country — no bluebird in the spring ! What will the farm-boy 
date from ? But the fear was groundless : the birds are regaining 
their lost ground; broods of young blue-coats are again seen 
drifting from stake to stake or from mullen-stalk to mullen-stalk 
about the fields in summer, and our April air will doubtless again 
be warmed and thrilled by this lovely harbinger of spring. 
John Burroughs. 
viii 
August 17, ’97. 
