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[Illustration: "The feast is finished and the games are on."]
Leading superintendents of schools and teachers have been pointing out that in "Wild Life Near Home," by Dallas Lore Sharp, there is much valuable supplementary reading for schools, and no less an authority than Mr. John Burroughs, in his recent article in the "Atlantic Monthly" entitled "Real and Sham Natural History," made the statement that "of all the nature books of recent years, I look upon Mr. Sharp's as the best."
The present volume will be found to contain carefully selected chapters from "Wild Life," arranged with special reference to nature study in the schools, where it is hoped that it will become popular with both teachers and pupils.
The feast is finished and the games are on Frontispiece
The cheerful little goldfinches, that bend the dried ragweeds 7
There she stood in the snow with head high, listening anxiously And--dreamed 16
I shivered as the icy flakes fell thicker and faster 22
From his leafless height he looks down into the Hollow 33
Uncle Jethro limbered his stiffened knees and went chuckling down the bank 36
The big moon was rising over the meadows 39
The snow has drifted over their house till only a tiny mound appears 43
Two little brown creatures washing calamus. 46
They probe the lawns most diligently for worms 57
They are the first to return in the spring 67
Across the road, in an apple-tree, built a pair of redstarts 80
Gathered half the gray hairs of a dandelion into her beak 83
In the tree next to the chebec's was a brood of robins. The crude nest was wedged carelessly into the lowest fork of the tree, so that the cats and roving boys could help themselves without trouble 85
I soon spied him on the wires of a telegraph-pole 88
Within a few feet of me dropped the lonely frightened quail 92