10 
INTRODUCTION 
feelings to the birds. But even he could 
not succeed in dehumanizing them alto¬ 
gether—and I'm glad of it. 
In the last of his volumes, “Under the 
Maples/' Burroughs tells one of the 
secrets of his rich harvest of nature wis¬ 
dom. It may be found in the reversal of 
an old proverb. Not distance but famil¬ 
iarity lends enchantment. These are his 
words: 
“When, as sometimes happens, I feel an 
inclination to seek out new lands in my 
own country, or in other countries, to see 
what Nature is doing there, and what 
guise she wears, something prompts me to 
pause, and after awhile to say to my¬ 
self : “Look a little closer into the nature 
right at your own door; do a little inten¬ 
sive observation at home and see what 
that yields you. The enticement of the 
far-away is mostly in your imagination; 
let your eyes and your imagination play 
once more on the old familiar birds and 
objects." And a paragraph from another 
chapter completes the statement of that 
profound truth: 
“The mere studying of the birds, seek- 
