{
 "id": "robert-williams-wood/intro-duc-tion",
 "title": "Intro‑duc‑tion",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Williams Wood",
 "poet_slug": "robert-williams-wood",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts",
 "book_slug": "how-to-tell-the-birds-from-the-flowers-and-other-woodcuts",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 1,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts (1917)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924027175250"
  ]
 },
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  "file": "how-to-tell-the-birds-from-the-flowers.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33346",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924027175250",
   "https://archive.org/details/animalanaloguesv00woodrich"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
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  [
   {
    "text": "By other Nature books I’m sure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’ve often been misled,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You’ve tried a wall‑flower to secure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And “picked a hen” instead:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You’ve wondered what the egg‑plants lay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And why the chestnut’s burred,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And if the hop‑vine hops away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s perfectly absurd.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I hence submit for your inspection,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This very new and choice collection,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of flowers on Storks, and Phlox of birds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With some explanatory words.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Not every one is always able",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To recognize a vegetable,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For some are guided by tradition,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While others use their intuition,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And even I make no pretense",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of having more than common sense.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Indeed these strange homologies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are in most flornithologies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I have freely drawn upon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The works of Gray and Audubon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Avoiding though the frequent blunders",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of those who study Nature’s wonders.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}