Everyday Adventures

Of the chapters of this book, three have appeared as separate articles in _The Atlantic Monthly_, three in _The Yale Review_, two in _The Youth's Companion_, and the others, in...

The last nest of all was my treasure nest of the summer. I was about to give up the game and start off for a walk, when suddenly, right ahead of me, hanging on the limb of a sug...

A red streak flashed down the limb on which the nuthatch was working. That was the squirrel. A fraction of a second ahead of the squirrel there was a wink of gray and white. Tha...

To-day the snow said the shrew had been an unbidden and unwelcome guest at the mice-dinner. At first the mice-trails were massed together in a maze of tracks. Where the trail of...

An hour later I was following a little path that zigzagged back and forth through thickets of scrub oak and stiff rows of pitch pines. Above the trees was the rush of wings. The...

"The nest!" muttered the Collector hoarsely, pouring a pint or so of rain-water down my neck from his hat-brim as he bent toward me. I stared with all my eyes, at last one of th...

During that golden week of treasure-hunting I found a number of common nests which, although everyday affairs to an experienced ornithologist, were then, as they are now, a sour...

It was the Banker again, on the other side of the lake, who made the next discovery. We were hunting a little apart through the woods, when he announced from where he stood that...

The next morning at dawn, from the Captain's room sounded the clear whistle of the cardinal grosbeak--the adventure-call of the Band. Followed thumps, splashings, and the sounds...

From that day I became a hunter of orchids and a haunter of far-away forests and lonely marshlands and unvisited hill-tops and mountain-sides. Wherever the lovely hid-folk dwell...

As I went on with my hunting, I learned that not all the members of the orchis family are beautiful. There is the coral root, with tiny dull brownish-purple flowers, which one f...

Later on, the Artist had his revenge. We were hunting everywhere for the bittern's nest. Suddenly, as the Artist stepped on a tussock, a large squawking bird flew out from under...

Mr. and Mrs. Coon are good parents. They keep their children with them until the arrival of a new family, which occurs with commendable regularity every spring. A friend of mine...

"This one is James," announced Mr. Prindle, as the first chipmunk hurried across the porch toward his chair. "His full name is James William Francis," he explained, "after a sec...

Through the dripping boughs I pressed far into the very centre of the wood. In a tangle of greenbrier sounded a series of sharp irritating chips, and a cardinal, blood-red again...

It was the veery song that I learned first. More years ago than I like to remember, I walked at sunrise by a thicket, listening to bird-songs and wondering whether there was any...