Wake-Robin
By . New York : Hurd and Houghton.
WITH most of these charming papers the readers of the Atlantic should be already familiar; and we dare say they will easily recall “ Spring at the Capital,” “ Bird’sNests,” “Birch Browsings,” and “In the Hemlocks,” which have appeared within recent years in our pages. To these are here added three other studies of bird-life, by one who writes of birds not only with thorough and original science, but also as a poet and as a lover of them.
His book, Mr. Burrough says, bears the familiar name of “ the White Trillium, which blooms in all our woods, and which marks the arrival of all the birds,” and in it he has tried always “to present a live bird, -—a bird in the woods or the fields,— with the atmosphere and associations of the place, and not merely a stuffed and labelled specimen.” He has succeeded so well in this that the dusk and cool and quiet of the forest seem to wrap the reader of his book, and it is a sort of summer vacation to turn its pages. It is written with a grace which continually subordinates itself to the material, but which we hope will not escape the recognition of the reader whose pleasure it enhances. Perhaps it would be difficult not to be natural and simple in writing of such things as our author treats of ; most connoisseurs of birds and their haunts have the same tone of friendly and gossiping confidence ; but Mr. Burroughs adds a strain of genuine poetry, which makes his papers unusually delightful, while he has more humor than generally falls to the ornithological tribe. His nerves have a poetical sensitiveness, his eye a poetical quickness ; and many of his descriptive passages impart all the thrill of his subtle observation. It is in every way an uncommon book that he has given us; fresh, wholesome, sweet, and full of a gentle and thoughtful spirit; a beautiful book within, and thanks to the growing taste of our publishers) an exceedingly pretty book without.