ng the essays for his new book, he
suddenly said, "I have it! We'll call it _Under the Maples_!"

His love for the maple, and consequently his pleasure in having hit upon
this title, can be gathered from the following fragment found among his
miscellaneous notes: "I always feel at home where the sugar maple grows
It was paramount in the woods of the old home farm where I grew up. It
looks and smells like home. When I bring in a maple stick to put on my
fire, I feel like caressing it a little. Its fiber is as white as a
lily, and nearly as sweet-scented. It is such a tractable, satisfactory
wood to handle--a clean, docile, wholesome tree; burning without
snapping or sputtering, easily worked up into stovewood, fine of grain,
hard of texture, stately as a forest tree, comely and clean as a shade
tree, glorious in autumn, a fountain of coolness in summer, sugar in its
veins, gold in its foliage, warmth in its fibers, and health in it the
year round."

CLARA BARRUS

_The Nest at Riverby_
_West Park on the Hudson_
_New York_

CONTENTS

I. THE FALLING LEAVES 1

II. THE PLEASURES OF A NATURALIST 11

III. THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS 32

IV. BIRD INTIMACIES 39

V. A MIDSUMMER IDYL 69

VI. NEAR VIEWS OF WILD LIFE 79

VII. WITH ROOSEVELT AT PINE KNOT 101

VIII. A STRENUOUS HOLIDAY 109

IX. UNDER GENIAL SKIES 127
I. A Sun-Blessed Land 127
II. Lawn Birds 129
III. Silken Chambers 132
IV. The Desert Note 143
V. Sea-Dogs 148

X. A SHEAF OF NATURE NOTES 152
I. Nature's Wireless 152
II. Maeterlinck on the Bee 156
III. Odd or Even 163
IV. Why and How 165
V. An Insoluble Problem 167
VI. A Live World 169
VII. Darwinism a