Mr. Burroughs is a good but not a great naturalist, as Audubon and Gray were great naturalists. His claim (and Audubon’s in part) upon us is literary. He has been a watcher in the woods; has made a few pleasant excursions into the primeval wilderness, leaving his gun at home, and his camera, too, thank Heaven! He has broken out no new trail, discovered no new animal, no new thing. But he has seen all the old, uncommon things, has seen them oftener, has watched them longer, through more seasons, than any other writer of our out-of-doors; and though he has discovered no new thing, yet he has made discoveries, volumes of them,--contributions largely to our stock of literature, and to our store of love for the earth, and to our joy in living upon it. He has turned a little of the universe into literature; has translated a portion of the earth into human language; has restored to us our garden here eastward in Eden--apple tree and all. For a real taste of fruity literature, try Mr. Burroughs’s chapter on “The Apple.” Try Thoreau’s, too,--if you are partial to squash-bugs. There are chapters in Mr. Burroughs, such as “Is it going to Rain?” “A River View,” “A Snow-Storm,” which seem to me as perfect, in their way, as anything that has ever been done--single, simple, beautiful in form, and deeply significant; the storm being a piece of fine description, of whirling snow across a geologic landscape, distant, and as dark as eternity; the whole wintry picture lighted and warmed at the end by a glowing touch of human life:-- “We love the sight of the brown and ruddy earth; it is the color of life, while a snow-covered plain is the face of death; yet snow is but the mark of life-giving rain; it, too, is the friend of man--the tender, sculpturesque, immaculate, warming, fertilizing snow.” There are many texts in these eleven volumes, many themes; and in them all there is one real message: that this is a good world to live in; that these are good men and women to live with; that life is good, here and now, and altogether worth living. VII HUNTING THE SNOW HUNTING THE SNOW The hunt began at the hen-yard gate, where we saw tracks in the thin, new snow that led us up the ridge, and along its narrow back, to a hollow stump. Here the hunt began in earnest, for not until that trail of close, double, nail-pointed prints went under the stump were the three small boys convinced that we were tracking a skunk and not a cat. This creature had moved leisurely. That you could tell by the closeness of the prints. Wide-apart tracks in the snow mean hurry. Now a cat, going as slowly as this creature went, would have put down her dainty feet almost in single line, and would have left round, cushion-marked holes in the snow, not triangular, nail-pointed prints like these. Cats do not venture into holes under stumps, either.