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Rating: 
Summary: Good, affordable edition of a classic on winged wildness .
Review: "There are little strains of poetry in our animals," Thoreau observed. "What we call wildness is a civilization other than our own." It is fitting that this volume, out of print since 1910, be brought back to life. Nineteen reduced-scale illustrations by Louis Agassiz Fuertes resonate off Thoreau's own descriptions and affections. The book is divided into twenty-three categories of birds, and within each section the diary entries are arranged chronologically. The index is useful and, like Thoreau himself, a blend of the downright and the unaccountable; for example, among all those birds one can find "Blueberry trees," "Frog, dreaming," and "Suckers, dead." Thoreau's purposes and results, as John Hay points out in the introduction by quoting Thoreau himself, remind us that "there is a world in which owls live."
Rating:
Summary: Good, affordable edition of a classic on winged wildness .
Review: "There are little strains of poetry in our animals," Thoreau observed. "What we call wildness is a civilization other than our own." It is fitting that this volume, out of print since 1910, be brought back to life. Nineteen reduced-scale illustrations by Louis Agassiz Fuertes resonate off Thoreau's own descriptions and affections. The book is divided into twenty-three categories of birds, and within each section the diary entries are arranged chronologically. The index is useful and, like Thoreau himself, a blend of the downright and the unaccountable; for example, among all those birds one can find "Blueberry trees," "Frog, dreaming," and "Suckers, dead." Thoreau's purposes and results, as John Hay points out in the introduction by quoting Thoreau himself, remind us that "there is a world in which owls live."
Rating:
Summary: A nice supplement to _Walden_ or to any bird field guide
Review: The editor combed through Thoreau's journals, found the naturalist's written observations of birds, and compiled them into this compact volume. The words can be insightful and melodious. Canada geese "migrate, not flitting from hedge to hedge, but from latitude to latitude, from State to State, steering boldly out into the ocean of air." Perhaps the most interesting passages are those of additional historic importance: his dated sightings of the passenger pigeons (or as Thoreau calls them, "wild pigeons") that were plentiful in New England in the mid-1800s but are now extinct. "I frequently see pigeons dashing about in small flocks, or three or four at a time, over the woods here," he wrote on May 7, 1859. Details are not for the squeamish, however. Henry lived in a time when hunting was not limited to game animals, and dead bodies were often brought to him for identification or examination. And he wrote about what he saw. Nevertheless, if you like Thoreau, or if you're a birder with a life list, you'll appreciate this book.
Rating:
Summary: A nice supplement to _Walden_ or to any bird field guide
Review: The editor combed through Thoreau's journals, found the naturalist's written observations of birds, and compiled them into this compact volume. The words can be insightful and melodious. Canada geese "migrate, not flitting from hedge to hedge, but from latitude to latitude, from State to State, steering boldly out into the ocean of air." Perhaps the most interesting passages are those of additional historic importance: his dated sightings of the passenger pigeons (or as Thoreau calls them, "wild pigeons") that were plentiful in New England in the mid-1800s but are now extinct. "I frequently see pigeons dashing about in small flocks, or three or four at a time, over the woods here," he wrote on May 7, 1859. Details are not for the squeamish, however. Henry lived in a time when hunting was not limited to game animals, and dead bodies were often brought to him for identification or examination. And he wrote about what he saw. Nevertheless, if you like Thoreau, or if you're a birder with a life list, you'll appreciate this book.
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