Public Domain
John Burroughs's first book, "Wake-Robin," contained a chapter entitled "The Invitation." It was an invitation to the study of birds. He has reiterated it, implicitly if not explicitly, in most of the books he has published since then, and many of his readers have joyfully acc...
The bird is in these woods, for I have seen him scores of times, but whether he builds high or low, on the ground or in the trees, is all unknown to me. That is his song now,--"...
5. Chapter 5If I were a bird, in building my nest I should follow the example of the bobolink, placing it in the midst of a broad meadow, where there was no spear of grass, or flower, or gr...
3. Chapter 3This is the bird that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Wilson about, greatly exciting the latter's curiosity. Wilson was just then upon the threshold of his career as an ornithologist,...
2. Chapter 2The first year of my cabin life a pair of robins attempted to build a nest upon the round timber that forms the plate under my porch roof. But it was a poor place to build in. I...
7. Chapter 7The winter wren is so called because he sometimes braves our northern winters, but it is rarely that one sees him at this season. I think I have seen him only two or three times...
8. Chapter 8The crow will quickly discover anything that looks like a trap or snare set to catch him, but it takes him a long time to see through the simplest contrivance. As I have above s...
4. Chapter 4The song sparrow nearly always builds upon the ground, but my little neighbor laid the foundations of her domicile a foot or more above the soil. And what a mass of straws and t...
1. Chapter 1John Burroughs's first book, "Wake-Robin," contained a chapter entitled "The Invitation." It was an invitation to the study of birds. He has reiterated it, implicitly if not exp...
9. Chapter 9The particular woodpecker to which I refer drilled his first hole in my apple-tree one fall four or five years ago. This he occupied till the following spring, when he abandoned...