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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



AUTUMN IS LIKE AN OLD MAN RECALLING THE DAYS OF HIS YOUTH." 



Autumn's Silver Lining. 



Spring, with her opalescent skies, 

 her flowers and hosts of other things 

 which breathe innocence and joy, is 

 assuredly the childhood of the year. 

 But it does not follow that autumn is 

 the melancholy analogue of old age 

 which we sometimes fancy that it is. 

 Is it not rather a renewed childhood? 

 Again blue skies, flowers, birds, even 

 butterflies and bees, as in spring. 

 While these live out the summer their 

 gaiety and freedom from care abandon 

 them at about the time of the summer 

 equinox; the birds have then built, the 

 butterflies and the bees are taking 

 thought for the morrow ; the flowers 

 are maturing their seeds ; even the 

 skies grow languid and the clouds 

 pensive. 



With the approach of age somewhat 

 of childhood returns to the year. The 

 bees hum cheerily ; butterflies play 

 among the asters and the goldenrod; 

 birds recall their earlier songs ; the 

 meadowlark cries "spreent" from a 

 lone tree in the pasture, and takes 

 wing; the vesper sparrow, growing 

 fond again, twitters his love notes and 

 follows his mate over grass that is mo- 

 mentarily becoming browner ; the 

 phoebe too, grown musical again, or 

 as nearly musical as she ever is, 

 haunts your clothesline and flutters 

 under the eaves. I have actually seen 



bluebirds building a nest in the au- 

 tumn. The woods are again enlivened 

 by warblers ; the dead leaves rustle 

 where thrushes hop and flit ; that, too, 

 is spring-like. 



Autumn is like an old man recalling 

 the days of his youth. Nor is there 

 lacking a child to sit on his knee while 

 he recounts with these vivid illustra- 

 tions the varied tale of what has been ; 

 the tiny winter wren is already here, 

 flitting, peering, questioning. 



Think of the pine grosbeaks, red- 

 polls, siskins, snow buntings and oth- 

 ers soon to take the place of the de- 

 parting birds. "Remember too 'tis 

 always (summer) somewhere, and, 

 above the awakening continents, from 

 shore to shore, somewhere the birds 

 are singing evermore." May there not 

 be a beautiful symbolism in this an- 

 nual migratory movement? Consider 

 what fair scenes, what glorious skies 

 and what an abundant harvest of their 

 favorite foods these birds must leave — 

 called by a voice that must be obeyed. 

 Even on stormy nights one may hear 

 the voices of little warblers as they 

 pass, and in clear weather he may 

 sometimes see them as they cross the 

 disc of the moon. They are obeying a 

 blind impulse, not knowing where nor 

 why they go, quitting a land smiling 

 and bountiful to travel through a thou- 

 sand miles of darkness to a foreign 



