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醒來的森林
約翰・巴勒斯（John Burroughs）被稱作「鳥之王國的約翰」，與美國國家公園之父約翰・繆爾（John Muirs）「山之王國的約翰」稱號齊名，被公認為是19及20世紀之交最傑出的自然文學作家。
巴勒斯的書即是他生活的寫照。1873年，他在哈德遜河西岸購置了一個九英畝的果園農場，在那裡親手設計和修建了一幢「河畔小屋」，兩年後又在山間搭了一座「山間石屋」，吸引眾多熱愛自然的人們，如美國總統羅斯福夫婦、發明家愛迪生、汽車鉅子亨利福特、詩人惠特曼、美國國家公園之父約翰繆爾等人經常造訪。
巴勒斯一生近五十年都在這兩處小屋度過，過著農夫與作家的雙重生活，寫下了他對「鳥之王國」的讚美篇章，被譽為是繼梭羅之後「一位真正在自然中生活與書寫的觀察家」。為紀念他對自然領域的貢獻，有十一所美國學校、多項獎項以巴勒斯的名字命名。
巴勒斯的書即是他生活的寫照。1873年，他在哈德遜河西岸購置了一個九英畝的果園農場，在那裡親手設計和修建了一幢「河畔小屋」，兩年後又在山間搭了一座「山間石屋」，吸引眾多熱愛自然的人們，如美國總統羅斯福夫婦、發明家愛迪生、汽車鉅子亨利福特、詩人惠特曼、美國國家公園之父約翰繆爾等人經常造訪。
巴勒斯一生近五十年都在這兩處小屋度過，過著農夫與作家的雙重生活，寫下了他對「鳥之王國」的讚美篇章，被譽為是繼梭羅之後「一位真正在自然中生活與書寫的觀察家」。為紀念他對自然領域的貢獻，有十一所美國學校、多項獎項以巴勒斯的名字命名。
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1871
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About the author
John Burroughs
915 books174 followersIn 1837, naturalist John Burroughs was born on a farm in the Catskills. After teaching, and clerking in government, Burroughs returned to the Catskills, and devoted his life to writing and gardening. He knew Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir and Walt Whitman, writing the first biography of Whitman. Most of his 22 books are collected essays on nature and philosophy. In In The Light of Day (1900) he wrote about his views on religion: "If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go." "When I look up at the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what is it that I really see there, I am constrained to say, 'There is no God' . . . " In his journal dated Feb. 18, 1910, he wrote: "Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all—that has been my religion." He died on his 83rd birthday. The John Burroughs Sanctuary can be found near West Park, N.Y., and his rustic cabin, Slabsides, has been preserved. D. 1921.
According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, John Burroughs was the most important practitioner after Henry David Thoreau of that especially American literary genre, the nature essay. By the turn of the 20th century he had become a virtual cultural institution[peacock term] in his own right: the Grand Old Man of Nature at a time when the American romance with the idea of nature, and the American conservation movement, had come fully into their own. His extraordinary popularity and popular visibility were sustained by a prolific stream of essay collections, beginning with Wake-Robin in 1871.
In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs' special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of "a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world." The result was a body of work whose perfect resonance with the tone of its cultural moment perhaps explains both its enormous popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since.
Since his death in 1921, John Burroughs has been commemorated by the John Burroughs Association. The association maintains the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York, a 170 acre plot of land surrounding Slabsides, and awards a medal each year to "the author of a distinguished book of natural history".
Twelve U.S. schools have been named after Burroughs, including public elementary schools in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, Minnesota, public middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California, a public high school in Burbank, California, and a private secondary school, John Burroughs School, in St. Louis, Missouri. Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park is named in his honor.There was a medal named after John Burroughs and the John Burroughs Association publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Each year the Burroughs medal is awarded to the author of a distinguished book of natural history, with the presentation made during the Association's annual meeting on the first Monday of April.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bur...
http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/
According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, John Burroughs was the most important practitioner after Henry David Thoreau of that especially American literary genre, the nature essay. By the turn of the 20th century he had become a virtual cultural institution[peacock term] in his own right: the Grand Old Man of Nature at a time when the American romance with the idea of nature, and the American conservation movement, had come fully into their own. His extraordinary popularity and popular visibility were sustained by a prolific stream of essay collections, beginning with Wake-Robin in 1871.
In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs' special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of "a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world." The result was a body of work whose perfect resonance with the tone of its cultural moment perhaps explains both its enormous popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since.
Since his death in 1921, John Burroughs has been commemorated by the John Burroughs Association. The association maintains the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York, a 170 acre plot of land surrounding Slabsides, and awards a medal each year to "the author of a distinguished book of natural history".
Twelve U.S. schools have been named after Burroughs, including public elementary schools in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, Minnesota, public middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California, a public high school in Burbank, California, and a private secondary school, John Burroughs School, in St. Louis, Missouri. Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park is named in his honor.There was a medal named after John Burroughs and the John Burroughs Association publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Each year the Burroughs medal is awarded to the author of a distinguished book of natural history, with the presentation made during the Association's annual meeting on the first Monday of April.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bur...
http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 23, 2025
3 stars. This was an interesting collection of pieces on birds and the woods. There were a couple mentions of the Mother Nature idea.
A Favourite Quote: “...what has interested me most in Ornithology, is the pursuit, the chase, the discovery; that part of it which is akin to hunting, fishing, and wild sports, and which I could carry with me in my eye and ear, wherever I went.
A Favourite Beautiful Quote: “The song of some birds is like scarlet,—strong, intense, emphatic. This is the character of the orchard starlings; also of the tanagers and the various grossbeaks. On the other hand, the songs of other birds, as of certain of the thrushes, suggests the serene blue of the upper sky.”
A Favourite Humorous Quote: “I had begun to have a very ugly feeling of alarm and disappointment, and to cast about vaguely for some course to pursue in the emergency that seemed near at hand,—namely, the loss of my companions now I had found the lake[.]”
A Favourite Quote: “...what has interested me most in Ornithology, is the pursuit, the chase, the discovery; that part of it which is akin to hunting, fishing, and wild sports, and which I could carry with me in my eye and ear, wherever I went.
A Favourite Beautiful Quote: “The song of some birds is like scarlet,—strong, intense, emphatic. This is the character of the orchard starlings; also of the tanagers and the various grossbeaks. On the other hand, the songs of other birds, as of certain of the thrushes, suggests the serene blue of the upper sky.”
A Favourite Humorous Quote: “I had begun to have a very ugly feeling of alarm and disappointment, and to cast about vaguely for some course to pursue in the emergency that seemed near at hand,—namely, the loss of my companions now I had found the lake[.]”
December 28, 2012
Wake-Robin (1871) was the first of over thirty books written by John Burroughs. Regarded as the father of the American nature essay, Burroughs was one of the most popular authors of his time. His writing journey begins while a clerk in Washington DC during the Civil War, recounting tales of birds and rambling in his native Catskills. I've been fortunate to have visited his summer residence, Woodchuck Lodge (Roxbury NY), several times. http://goo.gl/OF87K is a link to the frontispiece of Wake-Robin, a daguerreotype of Burroughs as a young man.
August 18, 2017
I just moved to the Catskill Mountains, and regularly drive to Roxbury, just 30 minutes from my new home. I read this, my first Burroughs collection (but not my last) so I could learn how to start seeing this beautiful area. It's always thrilling to read a writer who has his or her own lenses, especially when they are focused on something in your own viewfinder. Lovely, beautiful writing.
May 1, 2023
In the Introduction to the 1895 edition of his book, John Burroughs writes:
I was given this book from a great-uncle's library and did not read it while he was alive, otherwise I would have told him what a treasure I had received.
Burroughs indeed takes us on walks with him through the early Washington D.C area wilderness, then continues his essay as he later moved to the Hudson River Valley. He explores through various environs and seasons, points out the flash of a bird in the underbrush, the cry of a raptor soaring overhead and the tunes of hungry fledglings in the many different types of nest, placing each in a complex relation to the rest of nature.
The very art of observation was open to many misinterpretations, since there were no pocket identification guides nor a registry of recorded birdsong like we have today. His nomenclature was confusing, since there were many regional names for birds - when did you last see a high-hole? Audubon's massive publication was $120 in 1870, about $2800 today. He chides Audubon and Nuttall in his concluding chapter for their wordiness and "variation of description" from his own. He also tells how birds have become more wary of man, stating that he had been able to capture several by hand early in his career.
Finally, he gives instructions for us to start our own adventure:
Irrelevant footnote: You knew of course that Audubon's original notes included how his specimens tasted.
"If I name every bird I see in my walk, describe its color and ways, etc., give a lot of facts or details about the bird, it is doubtful if my reader is interested. But if I relate the bird in some way to human life, to my own life, —show what it is to me and what it is in the landscape and the season, —then I do give my reader a live bird and not a labeled specimen."
I was given this book from a great-uncle's library and did not read it while he was alive, otherwise I would have told him what a treasure I had received.
Burroughs indeed takes us on walks with him through the early Washington D.C area wilderness, then continues his essay as he later moved to the Hudson River Valley. He explores through various environs and seasons, points out the flash of a bird in the underbrush, the cry of a raptor soaring overhead and the tunes of hungry fledglings in the many different types of nest, placing each in a complex relation to the rest of nature.
The very art of observation was open to many misinterpretations, since there were no pocket identification guides nor a registry of recorded birdsong like we have today. His nomenclature was confusing, since there were many regional names for birds - when did you last see a high-hole? Audubon's massive publication was $120 in 1870, about $2800 today. He chides Audubon and Nuttall in his concluding chapter for their wordiness and "variation of description" from his own. He also tells how birds have become more wary of man, stating that he had been able to capture several by hand early in his career.
Finally, he gives instructions for us to start our own adventure:
“Ornithology cannot be satisfactorily learned from the books. The satisfaction is in learning it from nature. One must have an original experience with the birds.In my case I will eschew his instruction and gladly ogle with a glass.
First, find your bird; observe its ways, its song, its calls, its flight, its haunts; then shoot it (not ogle it with a glass), and compare with Audubon. In this way the feathered kingdom may soon be conquered.”
Irrelevant footnote: You knew of course that Audubon's original notes included how his specimens tasted.
June 9, 2025
Wake-Robin John Burroughs
It was a birder friend who recommended this book, and after reading it, I passed it on to another birder friend. I am not a birder, but I do like to write poems about birds (it's a whole folder within my larger Poetry folder).
The book has no arc whatsoever. It's a collection of bird observations written by a naturalist in 1871. It's only 90 pages. I have 58 highlights, almost one per page, for Burroughs' beautiful language.
He calls a sooty tern "another Icarus." He says the scarlet tanager is so bright that "I almost fear he will kindle the dry limb on which he alights." He hears "something military" in the call of the robin.
But he reserves his highest praise for the hermit thrush — sentence after sentence about its "spiritual serenity." Its "peace and deep, solemn joy." Its wild song in a high key, an evening hymn: "O holy, holy! O clear away, clear away! O clear up, clear up!"
And Burroughs is the bee:
John Burroughs' Honey
Like the bee, you do not get honey. You make it—
nectar plus acid, observation plus pencil.
You, the poet. You, the artist.
You sometimes with a gun, gleaning
what the grass, the stones, the twilight,
even the birds themselves knew not —
the song they are capable of.
–Megan Willome
It was a birder friend who recommended this book, and after reading it, I passed it on to another birder friend. I am not a birder, but I do like to write poems about birds (it's a whole folder within my larger Poetry folder).
The book has no arc whatsoever. It's a collection of bird observations written by a naturalist in 1871. It's only 90 pages. I have 58 highlights, almost one per page, for Burroughs' beautiful language.
He calls a sooty tern "another Icarus." He says the scarlet tanager is so bright that "I almost fear he will kindle the dry limb on which he alights." He hears "something military" in the call of the robin.
But he reserves his highest praise for the hermit thrush — sentence after sentence about its "spiritual serenity." Its "peace and deep, solemn joy." Its wild song in a high key, an evening hymn: "O holy, holy! O clear away, clear away! O clear up, clear up!"
And Burroughs is the bee:
John Burroughs' Honey
Like the bee, you do not get honey. You make it—
nectar plus acid, observation plus pencil.
You, the poet. You, the artist.
You sometimes with a gun, gleaning
what the grass, the stones, the twilight,
even the birds themselves knew not —
the song they are capable of.
–Megan Willome
September 9, 2017
It's really all about birds.....
July 13, 2012
A fun trip afield with John Burroughs while birding. His enthusiasm shows through in all chapter. He records a lot of subjective bird behavior which is of interest to those seeking birds in the outdoors. Also a fair amount of descriptive text on identification by song, plumage, and habitat.
December 24, 2021
A laundry list of birds Burroughs observed, their habits and habitats. More enjoyable the second time around.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews