THERE is clear justice in the statement that no American writer since Thoreau has given fresher or more sympathetic descriptions of out-door life than Mr. John Burroughs. He has the same intimate acquaintance with nature, accuracy of observation, and true poetical instinct; and to these qualities he adds a polished style and definite literacy methods not owned by the recluse of Walden. His latest volume, "Pepacton" (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), is composed of eight essays, of which the leading one is the admirable description of the author's summer voyage down the Pepacton branch of the Delaware in a rowboat, published lately in the "Atlantic Monthly." We know of nothing more delightful than this essay—unless it might be the trip itself, which Mr. Burroughs's idyllic descriptions make one long to take. The remaining essays are: "Springs," "An Idyl of the Honey-Bee," "Nature and the Poets," "Notes by the Way," "Foot-Paths," "A Bunch of Herbs," " and "Winter Pictures."