Journeys to England, to the West Indies, to Alaska with the Harriman Expedition, to the Grand Canyon and the Yosemite, which he explored with his friend John Muir, to the Yellowstone (he visited the National Park in 1903 as the chosen companion of President Theodore Roosevelt), widened the sphere of John Burroughs' happy bird and flower hunting-grounds. But he still loves best the scenes of his boyhood, and he often returns in summer to the Catskills to revive memories, and write, and muse on the beauties of the Delaware County hills and vales. His home above the Hudson, at Riverby, West Park, where he has lived for nearly half a century, and Slabsides, his tree-shaded chestnut-barked work cabin on a nearby hill, are places of pilgrimage for children, poets, wise men. "Nature lovers?" said a visitor. "Yes, and John Burroughs lovers, too."
"The whole gospel of my books," wrote the sage of Slabsides, most distinguished of living American naturalists, "is 'Stay at home; see the wonderful and the beautiful in the simple things all about you; make the most of the common and the near at hand.'" Herein we have the keynote of the enduring charm that distinguishes all the Burroughs books about bursting buds, birds, butterflies, leaves, and the seasons' graces. Said Walt Whitman of a letter written to him by Mr. Burroughs, "It is a June letter, worthy of June; written in John's best out-door mood. I sit here, helpless as I am, and breathe it in like fresh air."
[Illustration: FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY PIRIE MACDONALD NEW YORK
_AMERICAN NATURALISTS_ _Ernest Thompson Seton_
Ernest Thompson Seton, Nature illustrator and writer, was born in South Shields, England, in the year 1860. At five years of age his parents moved to Canada and established a home in the backwoods. He was educated in the public schools and the Collegiate Institute of Toronto, and later attended the Royal Academy in London. On the plains of Manitoba, Canada, he studied natural history, and became so efficient that he was appointed official naturalist to the Government of Manitoba. Between the years 1886 and 1891 he published two books on the mammals and birds of the northern province.
Following a period of art study in Paris, Mr. Seton became one of the illustrators of the Century Dictionary. Besides illustrating many books about birds and animals and writing the text, he has contributed numerous articles to leading magazines, and has delivered more than three thousand lectures on natural history subjects. Practically all of this author's books are contributions to natural history. His "Life Histories of Northern Animals" is a popular treatise on a scientific basis, of which Theodore Roosevelt said, "I regard your work as one of the most valuable contributions any naturalist has made to the life histories of American mammals."