The matter here submitted has been accumulated upon several hunting trips in the wilderness, and many excursions from time to time into the woods and fields about home. The author has for some years kept more or less extensive field notes, and has taken numerous photographs of objects, scenes, or incidents by the way.

Not all of the narrative is concerned with the chase, but all has to do with, or is in some way attributable to, the wanderlust that from boyhood days has cast its spell over the author at uncertain intervals, and from time to time, has compelled a pilgrimage nearer or farther into the regions of that freedom found only where man is not.

If in the heart of the reader it sets vibrating again some chord once sounded by the breath of the forest, or stirs to harmony some strings hitherto not attuned to the music of the great outdoors, the mission of this volume will not have been vain, for it will then have assisted in a modest way the interpretation of that medium of expression of which Bryant has said,

W. S. T.

Pittsburgh, Pa.,
March, 1913.