Books by John Burroughs

I suspect it requires a special gift of grace to enable one to hear the bird-songs; some new powermust be added to the ear, or some obstruction removed. There are not only scales upon our eyes sothat we do not see, there are scales upon our ears so that we do not hear. A city woman who hadspent much of her time in the country once asked a well-known ornithologist to take her where shecould hear the bluebird. "What, never heard the bluebird!" said he. "I have not," said the woman."Then you will never hear it," said the bird-lover; never hear it with that inward ear that gives beautyand meaning to the note. He could probably have taken her in a few minutes where she could haveheard the call or warble of the bluebird; but it would have fallen upon unresponsive ears-upon earsthat were not sensitized by love for the birds or associations with them. Bird-songs are not music, properly speaking, but only suggestions of music. A great many people whose attention would bequickly arrested by the same volume of sound made by a musical instrument or by artificial meansnever hear them at all. The sound of a boy's penny whistle there in the grove or the meadow wouldseparate itself more from the background of nature, and be a greater challenge to the ear, than is thestrain of the thrush or the song of the sparrow. There is something elusive, indefinite, neutral, aboutbird-songs that makes them strike obliquely, as it were, upon the ear; and we are very apt to missthem. They are a part of nature, the Nature that lies about us, entirely occupied with her own affairs, and quite regardless of our presence. Hence it is with bird-songs as it is with so many other things innature-they are what we make them; the ear that hears them must be half creative. I am alwaysdisturbed when persons not especially observant of birds ask me to take them where they can hear aparticular bird, in whose song they have become interested through a description in some book. As Ilisten with them, I feel like apologizing for the bird: it has a bad cold, or has just heard somedepressing news; it will not let itself out. The song seems so casual and minor when you make a deadset at it. I have taken persons to hear the hermit thrush, and I have fancied that they were all thetime saying to themselves, "Is that all?" But should one hear the bird in his walk, when the mind isattuned to simple things and is open and receptive, when expectation is not aroused and the songcomes as a surprise out of the dusky silence of the woods, then one feels that it merits all the finethings that can be said of i

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John Burroughs is renowned as a pioneer of the school of nature writing. This work provides an introduction to his work. These essays covers a range of Burroughs's interests, including plants and animals, the wilderness, pastoral landscapes, and the methods and goals of the naturalist.