ROBINS IN THE MEADOW Wake-Robin
BY
JOHN BURROUGHS
Second Edition, corrected, enlarged, and illustrated
NEW YORK
PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON
Cambridge: The Riverside Press
1877
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
John Burroughs,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Copyright, 1876,
By John Burroughs.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.
In issuing a second and revised edition of Wake-Robin,the author has added a chapter on The Bluebird,and otherwise enlarged and corrected the texthere and there. The illustrations are kindly furnishedby Prof. Baird, and are taken from the “Historyof North American Birds,” by himself, Dr.Brewer, and Mr. Ridgeway, and published by Little,Brown, & Co.,—the most complete work on ourbirds that has yet appeared. The hermit-thrush representedis the Western hermit (Turdus ustulatis),and we have been obliged to substitute the black fly-catcher(Saponis nigricans) for the pewee, and thehouse finch (Corpodacus frontalis) for the purplefinch; but the difference is hardly appreciable in anuncolored engraving.
November, 1876.
PREFACE.
This is mainly a book about the Birds, or moreproperly an invitation to the study of Ornithology,and the purpose of the author will be carried out inproportion as it awakens and stimulates the interestof the reader in this branch of Natural History.
Though written less in the spirit of exact sciencethan with the freedom of love and old acquaintance,yet I have in no instance taken liberties with facts, orallowed my imagination to influence me to the extentof giving a false impression or a wrong coloring. Ihave reaped my harvest more in the woods than inthe study; what I offer, in fact, is a careful and conscientiousrecord of actual observations and experiences,and is true as it stands written, every word ofit. But what has interested me most in Ornithology,is the pursuit, the chase, the discovery; that part ofit which is akin to hunting, fishing, and wild sports,and which I could carry with me in my eye and ear,wherever I went.[vi]
I cannot answer with much confidence the poet’sinquiry,
but I have done what I could to bring home the“earth and the sky” with the sparrow I heard “singingat dawn on the alder bough.” In other words,I have tried to p