Wake-Robin | Page 4

in proportion as it awakens and stimulates the interest of the reader
in this branch of Natural History.
Though written less in the spirit of exact science than with the freedom
of love and old acquaintance, yet I have in no instance taken liberties
with facts, or allowed my imagination to influence me to the extent of
giving a false impression or a wrong coloring. I have reaped my harvest
more in the woods than in the study; what I offer, in fact, is a careful
and conscientious record of actual observations and experiences, and is
true as it stands written, every word of it. But what has interested me
most in Ornithology is the pursuit, the chase, the discovery; that part of
it which is akin to hunting, fishing, and wild sports, and which I could
carry with me in my eye and ear wherever I went.
I cannot answer with much confidence the poet's inquiry,--
"Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?"
but I have done what I could to bring home the "river and sky" with the
sparrow I heard "singing at dawn on the alder bough." In other words, I
have tried to present a live bird,--a bird in the woods or the fields,--with
the atmosphere and associations of the place, and not merely a stuffed
and labeled specimen.

A more specific title for the volume would have suited me better; but
not being able to satisfy myself in this direction, I cast about for a word
thoroughly in the atmosphere and spirit of the book, which I hope I
have found in "Wake-Robin," the common name of the white Trillium,
which blooms in all our woods, and which marks the arrival of all the
birds.

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION TO RIVERSIDE EDITION I. THE
RETURN OF THE BIRDS II. IN THE HEMLOCKS III. THE
ADIRONDACKS IV. BIRDS'-NESTS V. SPRING AT THE
CAPITAL VI. BIRCH BROWSINGS VII. THE BLUEBIRD VIII.
THE INVITATION INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS JOHN BURROUGHS Etched by W. H.
W. Bicknell, from a daguerreotype PARTRIDGE'S NEST From a
photograph by Herbert W. Gleason A CABIN IN THE
ADIRONDACKS From a photograph by Clifton Johnson AMERICAN
OSPREY, OR FISH HAWK (colored) From a drawing by L. A.
Fuertes BIRD'S-FOOT VIOLETS From a photograph by Herbert W.
Gleason BLUEBIRD From a drawing by L. A. Fuertes

INTRODUCTION TO RIVERSIDE EDITION
In coming before the public with a newly made edition of my writings,
what can I say to my reader at this stage of our acquaintance that will
lead to a better understanding between us? Probably nothing. We
understand each other very well already. I have offered myself as his
guide to certain matters out of doors, and to a few matters indoor, and
he has accepted me upon my own terms, and has, on the whole been
better pleased with me than I had any reason to expect. For this I am
duly grateful; why say more? Yet now that I am upon my feet, so as to
speak, and palaver is the order, I will keep on a few minutes longer.
It is now nearly a quarter of a century since my first book,
"Wake-Robin," was published. I have lived nearly as many years in the

world as I had lived when I wrote its principal chapters. Other volumes
have followed, and still others. When asked how many there are, I often
have to stop and count them up. I suppose the mother of a large family
does not have to count up her children to say how many there are. She
sees their faces all before her. It is said of certain savage tribes who
cannot count above five, and yet who own flocks and herds, that every
native knows when he has got all his own cattle, not by counting, but
by remembering each one individually.
The savage is with his herds daily; the mother has the love of her
children constantly in her heart; but when one's book goes forth from
him, in a sense it never returns. It is like the fruit detached from the
bough. And yet to sit down and talk of one's books as a father might
talk of his sons, who had left his roof and gone forth to make their own
way in the world, is not an easy matter. The author's relation to his
book is a little more direct and personal, after all, more a matter of will
and choice, than a father's relation to his child. The book does not
change, and, whatever it fortunes, it remains to the end what its author
made it. The son is an evolution out of a long line of ancestry, and one's
responsibility of this or that trait is often very slight; but the