Author of "Nature's Calendar," "Wild Life of Orchard and Field," "Wild Neighbors,"
"Art of the Wild," "Animal Competitors," and other Nature Books.
Photograph by Press Illustrating Service, Inc. JOHN BURROUGHS AT THE DOOR OF "SLABSIDES" His study on the hill above his home at West Park, New York |
MENTOR GRAVURES JOHN J. AUDUBON J. LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ HENRY DAVID THOREAU JOHN MUIR JOHN BURROUGHS ERNEST THOMPSON SETON |
In the sense of its attractive description and interpretation, as distinguished from its coldly scientific study, the literature of natural history in the United States is a modern development. Americans were intensely engaged in the earlier years of their history in practical affairs. A large proportion of them were pioneers who were too much occupied in subduing the wilderness and its harmful denizens to civilized purposes to be interested in its beauties. Undoubtedly there were "Nature lovers" even then. The poetry of James Hillhouse (1754-1832), and the fact that he set out the trees that brought New Haven fame as the "Elm City," prove him to have been a Nature lover; but the class of readers now known by that title is, like the phrase itself, of very recent growth.
Entered as second-class matter March 10, 1913, at the post office at New York, N.Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1919, by The Mentor Association, Inc.
Alexander Wilson
Photograph by courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York
PORTRAIT OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
Painted by his son, John Woodhouse Audubon, about 1841
