_San Francisco_: alluding to the earthquake and fire which nearly wiped out the city in 1906.
The picture of the young buzzard is as true as a photograph; the bumped-up drawing of the old bird looks precisely as she did atop her dead tree, watching my approach. This vulture rarely soars into New England skies; down South, especially along the coast, the smaller black vulture (_Catharista urubu_) is found very tame and in great abundance; while in the far Southwest lives the great condor.
_tulip poplar_: tulip-tree (_Liriodendron tulipifera_).
"_For it had bene an auncient tree_": from Edmund Spenser's "Shepherd's Calendar."
_a dozen kinds of cramps_: Perhaps you will say I didn't find much in finding the buzzard's nest, and got mostly cramps! Yes, but I also got the buzzard's nest--a thing that I had wanted to see for many years. It was worth seeing, however, for its own sake. Even a buzzard is interesting. See the account of him in "Wild Life Near Home," the chapter called "A Buzzard's Banquet."
The point of the story is the enthusiasm of the naturalists for their work--work that to the uncaring and unknowing seemed not even worth while. But all who do great things do them with all their might. No one can stop to count the cost whose soul is bent on great things.
_Concord and Middleboro_: in Massachusetts.
_D. Henry Thoreau_: better known as Henry D. Thoreau; author of "Walden," etc.
_J. W. P. Jenks_: for many years head of Pierce Academy, Middleboro, and later Professor of Agricultural Zoölogy in Brown University.
_Contributions_: used in place of the whole name: Go yourself into the public library and read this and look at the four large volumes.
_spatter-docks_: yellow pond-lily (_Nuphar advena_).
_dinosaurian_: one of the fossil reptile monsters of the Mesozoic, or "middle," period of the earth's history, before the age of man.
In this story I have tried to settle the difficult question of debit and credit between me and the out-of-doors. Shall we exterminate the red squirrels, the hawks, owls, etc., is a question that is not so easily answered as one might think. The fact is we do not want to exterminate _any_ of our native forms of life--we need them all, and owe them more, each of them, for the good they do us, than they owe us for the little harm they may do us. Read this over with the children with its moral and economic lesson in view. Send to the National Association of Audubon Societies, New York City, for their free leaflets upon this matter. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Harrisburg, Pa., has a bulletin upon this same subject which will be sent free upon application.