Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 14108-h.htm or 14108-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/0/14108/14108-h/14108-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/0/14108/14108-h.zip) IN THE CATSKILLS Selections from the Writings of John Burroughs With Illustrations from Photographs by Clifton Johnson Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge 1910 [Illustration: A DISTANT VIEW OF SLIDE MOUNTAIN The highest of the Catskills (Chapter VI)] CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE SNOW-WALKERS II. A WHITE DAY AND A RED FOX III. PHASES OF FARM LIFE IV. IN THE HEMLOCKS V. BIRDS'-NESTS VI. THE HEART OF THE SOUTHERN CATSKILLS VII. SPECKLED TROUT VIII. A BED OF BOUGHS ILLUSTRATIONS A DISTANT VIEW OF SLIDE MOUNTAIN (Frontispiece) THE FOX-HUNTER AND HIS HOUND AT THE HEADWATERS OF THE DELAWARE Overlooking Mr. Burroughs's boyhood home FINDING A BIRD'S-NEST THE WITTENBERG FROM WOODLAND VALLEY A TROUT STREAM THE BEAVERKILL SOME PEOPLE OF THE CATSKILLS INTRODUCTION The eight essays in this volume all deal with the home region of their author; for not only did Mr. Burroughs begin life in the Catskills, and dwell among them until early manhood, but, as he himself declares, he has never taken root anywhere else. Their delectable heights and valleys have engaged his deepest affections as far as locality is concerned, and however widely he journeys and whatever charms he discovers in nature elsewhere, still the loveliness of those pastoral boyhood uplands is unsurpassed. The ancestral farm is in Roxbury among the western Catskills, where the mountains are comparatively gentle in type and always graceful in contour. Cultivated fields and sunny pastures cling to their mighty slopes far up toward the summits, there are patches of woodland including frequent groves of sugar maples, and there are apple orchards and winding roadways, and endless lines of rude stone fences, and scattered dwellings. In every hollow runs a clear trout brook, with its pools and swift shallows and silvery falls. Birds and other wild creatures abound; for the stony earth and the ledges that crop out along the hillsides, the thickets and forest patches, the sheltered glens and windy heights offer great variety in domicile to animal life. The creatures of the outdoor world are much in evidence, and at no time do their numbers impress one more than when in winter one sees the hand-writing of their tracks on the snow.