The Clerk of the Woods

by Bradford Torrey

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1904

COPYRIGHT 1903 BY BRADFORD TORREY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published September, 1903

PREFATORY NOTE

The chapters of this book were written week by week for simultaneous publication in the “Evening Transcript” of Boston and the “Mail and Express” of New York, and were intended to be a kind of weekly chronicle of the course of events out-of-doors, as witnessed by a natural-historical observer. The title of the volume is the running title under which the articles were printed in the “Evening Transcript.” It was chosen as expressive of the modest purpose of the writer, whose business was not to be witty or wise, but simply to “keep the records.”

CONTENTS

	PAGE
A Short Month	[ 1]
A Full Migration	[ 9]
A Favorite Round	[ 17]
In the Cambridge Swamp	[ 25]
A Quiet Afternoon	[ 34]
Popular Woodpeckers	[ 42]
Late Summer Notes	[ 50]
Wood Silence	[ 60]
Southward Bound	[ 67]
Four Dreamers	[ 74]
A Day in Franconia	[ 82]
With the Waders	[ 91]
On the North Shore Again	[ 104]
Autumnal Moralities	[ 117]
A Text from Thoreau	[ 127]
The Pleasures of Melancholy	[ 135]
In the Old Paths	[ 142]
The Prosperity of a Walk	[ 152]
Signs of Spring	[ 159]
Old Colony Berry Pastures	[ 168]
Squirrels, Foxes, and Others	[ 177]
Winter as it was	[ 186]
“Down at the Store”	[ 194]
Birds at the Window	[ 203]
A Good-by to Winter	[ 212]
Bird Songs and Bird Talk	[ 219]
Chipmunks, Bluebirds, and Robins	[ 226]
March Swallows	[ 233]
Woodcock Vespers	[ 242]
Under April Clouds	[ 250]
Flying Squirrels and Spade-foot Frogs	[ 258]
The Warblers are coming	[ 267]
Index	[ 275]

THE CLERK OF THE WOODS

THE CLERK OF THE WOODS

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A SHORT MONTH