| PAGE | |
| The "Hermit" and His Home | Frontispiece |
| Tree Sparrow | [25] |
| Fox Sparrow | [27] |
| Bay-winged Bunting | [28] |
| Blackbird | [29] |
| Raccoon's Head | [30] |
| "I begun by tying on a nut" | [37] |
| "With a savage snarl he sprang on to the dude" | [47] |
| Song Sparrow | [52] |
| "Wabbles made it his business to awake me at daylight" | [54] |
| Wabbles | [65] |
| Pigeon Hawk | [69] |
| "Many a sprinting match of this kind takes place in my dooryard" | [74] |
| "The winter storehouse was completed" | [85] |
| Indigo-bird | [96] |
| Oven-bird | [97] |
| Black-throated Green Warbler | [98] |
| Cedar-bird | [102] |
| The New Cabin | [103] |
| Maryland Yellowthroat | [104] |
| Red-winged Blackbirds | [104] |
| Brown Thrush | [105] |
| Swamp Song-sparrow | [106] |
| Baltimore Oriole | [107] |
| Belted Kingfisher, Watching | [109] |
| Kingfisher, Striking | [110] |
| Kingfisher, Lifting His Catch | [111] |
| "The distance between them grew less quite rapidly" | [114] |
| "Hermit, you are out" | [117] |
| "It carries its victim by the middle" | [125] |
| Mole | [131] |
| Kingbird | [141] |
| Ruffed Grouse | [145] |
| "The next sentinel takes up the call" | [151] |
| "I shot two ducks" | [158] |
| Coot's Head | [159] |
| Chickadee | [173] |
| "I threw a bit of cookie to her" | [174] |
| English Sparrow | [186] |
| Sparrow | [189] |
| "Found his owlship on a low limb" | [191] |
| Owl Chased | [193] |
| Yellow-bellied Woodpecker | [196] |
| "HE Coiled Around My Arm" | [202] |
| Blue-winged Yellow Warbler | [211] |
| Bee Hunting | [226] |
| "Again the plucky little bunting set its wing and lowered its head" | [241] |
| "Made his way to the box, hand over hand" | [245] |
| Chestnut-sided Warbler | [254] |
| Blue Jays | [265] |
| Wood Thrush | [275] |
| The Hermit Thrush | [278] |
| Triplefoot's Den | [298] |
| "She stopped to look around, and saw me" | [303] |
A Hermit's Wild Friends
OR
Eighteen Years in the Woods
I.
NATURE versus MEDICINE
Eighteen years ago I was in sore straits. Ill health had reduced my flesh until I resembled the living skeleton of a dime show. I realized that a few months more of city life would take me beyond the living stage, and that the world would have no further use for me except to adorn some scientific laboratory.
A diagnosis of my case would read as follows:
Dyspepsia, aggravated, medicine could give but slight relief. Catarrh, malignant, persistent. A douche was necessary every morning to relieve the severe facial pain. A cough that had worried me by day and by night, and thrived on all kinds of cough medicine. Also, my lungs were sore and the palms of my hands were hot and dry. I thought that I was fading away with consumption, but the doctors said my lungs were sound. I was advised to go into the woods and try life in a pine grove. As there was no money for the doctors in this advice, I looked upon it as kind and disinterested, but my mind ran in another direction.
When I was young and full of notions, the idea entered my head that I should like a change from fresh to salt water. It resulted in a two months' trip on a fishing schooner. During the trip I had been free from seasickness, and had gained flesh rapidly. The memory of that sea voyage haunted me, now that I had become sick and discouraged. It seemed to me that a few weeks on salt water would save my life.