112 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



for most of the singing birds have gone, and 

 the instrumental music of crickets, grasshoppers, 

 and similar phonating insects has stopped for the 

 season. Just as we were thinking of this, however, 

 we heard curlews calling to one another encourag- 

 ingly as they flew from the moorland towards 

 their winter quarters by the seashore. There are 

 also rooks and gulls, larks and robins, and a few 

 other birds to be heard. Large numbers of lap- 

 wings have been very busy lately hunting small 

 deer in the bare fields, and some are speaking 

 in a subdued way to one another as they unite into 

 bands to migrate from Aberdeenshire to Ireland 

 one of their favorite autumnal journeys. At the 

 same time it must be admitted that autumn is not 

 very vocal, and we have to put the gain in color 

 against the loss in sound. The rather overwhelming 

 greenness of the vegetative period has been replaced 

 by a great variety of hue, as when white light is 

 split up by a prism, and though the splendor of 

 individual flowers has passed, there are big splashes 

 of color that offer compensation. 



So much for sensory delight, but there is also a 

 wealth of scientific interest. The great wave of life 

 gathers strength in spring, rises to its full height in 

 summer, sinks to rest in winter; the breaking time 

 is autumn, and no season is richer in problems. 

 We stoop and look along the links towards the 

 sinking sun, and we see the quivering of myriads 

 of fallen gossamer threads which earlier in the day 

 served multitudes of small spiders as silken para- 



