INTRODUCTION 9 
printed. He wrote it partly on a little 
table in Willard's hotel, partly in the 
rubber store of his friend Allen. It was 
sent to the Atlantic , whose editor, Lowell, 
had already printed an essay of his. Ar¬ 
ticles were unsigned in those days, and 
many readers had taken Burroughs' work 
for Emerson's. When he heard that, it 
quickened the young author's determina¬ 
tion to write in his own way, much as he 
admired Emerson. 
It was about this time that his life¬ 
long friendship with Walt Whitman be¬ 
gan. The poet and the bird student were 
introduced by Allen, to whom Walt after¬ 
ward said of John: “His face is like a 
field of wheat." 
In his works, this essay is a good deal „ 
changed. It forms the first chapter of his 
first volume “Wake Robin." A compari¬ 
son of the two forms indicates the direc¬ 
tion of the author's development. For 
example, he omits, In the book, the re¬ 
mark that the birds sang his praises be¬ 
cause he killed their enemy the snake. 
He was increasingly severe with any ten¬ 
dency to attribute human thoughts or 
