Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes, and Other PapersBurroughs, John
History
Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes, and Other Papers
Burroughs, John
Bees; Birds; Natural history -- Outdoor books
Besides his outdoor sketches and the other papers already mentioned,
Mr. Burroughs has written a number of critical essays on life and
literature, published in Indoor Studies, and other volumes. He has also
taken his readers into his confidence in An Egotistical Chapter,
the final one of his Indoor Studies; and in the Introduction to the
Riverside Edition of his writings he has given us further glimpses of
his private intellectual life.
Probably no other American writer has a greater sympathy with, and a
keener enjoyment of, country life in all its phases--farming, camping,
fishing, walking--than has John Burroughs. His books are redolent of the
soil, and have such "freshness and primal sweetness," that we need not
be told that the pleasure he gets from his walks and excursions is by no
means over when he steps inside his doors again. As he tells us on more
than one occasion, he finds he can get much more out of his outdoor
experiences by thinking them over, and writing them out afterwards.
Numbers 28, 36, and 92 of the Riverside Literature Series consist of
selections from Mr. Burroughs's books. No. 28, which is entitled Birds
and Bees, is made up of Bird Enemies and The Tragedies of the Nests from
the volume Signs and Seasons, An Idyl of the Honey-Bee from Pepacton,
and The Pastoral Bees from Locusts and Wild Honey. The Introduction,
by Miss Mary E. Burt, gives an account of the use of Mr. Burroughs's
writings in Chicago schools.
In No. 36, Sharp Eyes, and Other Papers, the initial paper, Sharp
Eyes, is drawn from Locusts and Wild Honey, The Apple comes from Winter
Sunshine, A Taste of Maine Birch and Winter Neighbors from Signs and
Seasons, and Notes by the Way (on muskrats, squirrels, foxes, and
woodchucks) from Pepacton.
The collection called A Bunch of Herbs, and Other Papers, forming No.
92 of the Series, was designed with special reference to what the author
has to say of trees and flowers, and contains A Bunch of Herbs from
Pepacton, Strawberries from Locusts and Wild Honey, A March Chronicle
and Autumn Tides from Winter Sunshine, A Spray of Pine and A Spring
Relish from Signs and Seasons, and English Woods: A Contrast from Fresh
Fields.
INTRODUCTION.
It is seldom that I find a book so far above children that I cannot
share its best thought with them. So when I first took up one of John
Burroughs's essays, I at once foresaw many a ramble with my pupils
through the enchanted country that is found within its breezy pages. To
read John Burroughs is to live in the woods and fields, and to associate
intimately with all their little timid inhabitants; to learn that--
"God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear,
To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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