The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ways of Nature, by John Burroughs

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Title: Ways of Nature

Author: John Burroughs

Release Date: October 13, 2009 [EBook #30249]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.

The words phoebe, manoeuvre, manoeuvring, Pooecetes and phoeniceus use
"oe" ligature in the original text.

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WAYS OF NATURE

[Illustration: A BIRD IN SIGHT]

WAYS OF NATURE

BY

JOHN BURROUGHS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT 1905 BY JOHN BURROUGHS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published October 1905_

PREFACE

My reader will find this volume quite a departure in certain ways from
the tone and spirit of my previous books, especially in regard to the
subject of animal intelligence. Heretofore I have made the most of
every gleam of intelligence of bird or four-footed beast that came
under my observation, often, I fancy, making too much of it, and
giving the wild creatures credit for more "sense" than they really
possessed. The nature lover is always tempted to do this very thing;
his tendency is to humanize the wild life about him, and to read his
own traits and moods into whatever he looks upon. I have never
consciously done this myself, at least to the extent of willfully
misleading my reader. But some of our later nature writers have been
guilty of this fault, and have so grossly exaggerated and
misrepresented the every-day wild life of our fields and woods that