The Writings of John Burroughs — Volume 05: Pepacton

"There is a spring which rises in a neighboring mountain, and running among the rocks is received into a little banqueting-room, artificially formed for that purpose, from whenc...

Yet it is pleasant to remember that, in our climate, there are no weeds so persistent and lasting and universal as grass. Grass is the natural covering of the fields. There are...

I HAVE all the more pleasure in calling my book after the title of the first chapter, "Pepacton," because this is the Indian name of my native stream. In its watershed I was bor...

In a long, deep eddy under the west shore I came upon a brood of wild ducks, the hooded merganser. The young were about half grown, but of course entirely destitute of plumage....

The birds, I say, were astir in the morning before I was, and some of them were more wakeful through the night, unless they sing in their dreams. At this season one may hear at...

In the afternoon we go nearly half a mile farther along the ridge to a corn-field that lies immediately in front of the highest point of the mountain. The view is superb; the ri...

For the largest and finest chestnuts I had last fall I was indebted to the gray squirrels. Walking through the early October woods one day, I came upon a place where the ground...

Weeds are Nature's makeshift. She rejoices in the grass and the grain, but when these fail to cover her nakedness she resorts to weeds. It is in her plan or a part of her econom...

I knew a farmer in New York who had a very large bob-tailed churn- dog by the name of Cuff. The farmer kept a large dairy and made a great deal of butter, and it was the busines...

THERE is always a new page to be turned in natural history, if one is sufficiently on the alert. I did not know that the eagle celebrated his nuptials in the air till one early...

In the first place, the tree-toad is nocturnal in its habits, like the common toad. By day it remains motionless and concealed; by night it is as alert and active as an owl, fee...

Countrymen do not walk except from necessity, and country women walk far less than their city sisters. When city people come to the country they do not walk, because that would...

In like manner the primrose is an exotic in American poetry, to say nothing of the snowdrop and the daisy. Its prominence in English poetry can be understood when we remember th...

"Knowledge never learned of schools, Of the wild bee's morning chase, Of the wild flower's time and place, Flight of fowl and habitude Of the tenants of the wood; How the tortoi...

The club-man, by common consent, was the first in the box that morning; but only a few ducks were moving, and he had lain there an hour before we marked a solitary bird approach...