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THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



AQASSIZ ASSOCIATION 



~ M<&&&^^^ 



AUTUMN OBSERVATIONS. 



I'.Y ELMER WALTER, CORRESPONDING 

 MEMBER, NO. 2002, PERU, IND. 



One clay late in October I took a 

 walk to the woods which is all that 

 remains of the forest playground of 

 niv bovhood. A brook meanders 

 across one portion and during the ages 

 of its erosion through the clay and 

 boulder drift, it has formed for itself 

 a little ravine, flanked on both sides 

 by hills that afford good burrowing 

 places for the small animals that yet 

 make this their home. Beneath the 

 shading boughs of the trees are here 

 and there groups of pawpaw bushes 

 clumps of spice-wood, scattered wild 

 gooseberry bushes and blackberry 

 patches. Along the brookside is a 

 tangled thicket of young trees, vines 

 and weeds. On the edge of this thick- 

 et stands a grand old oak that has thus 

 far escaped the woodman's ax and de- 

 fied the lightning. 



Jack Frost had painted the landscape 

 in his masterly way. Some of the 

 lower leaves of the beech trees were 

 still green, but the tops were brown 

 and others were decked in red and 

 yellow. The sunshine sifting through, 

 completed the color scheme and illu- 

 mination, ddie air was cool enough 

 to make the sunshine pleasant, and I 

 strolled about aimlessly, sometimes 

 lingering to eat a few ripe pawpaws, 

 or 10 examine some interesting plant. 

 I then walked to the southern border 

 of the woods, where a tangle of grape 

 vines formed canopies with one or two 

 hawthorn trees and where the wild 

 fruit was ripening under the autumn 

 sun. Spanish-needles reached out for 

 intimate greeting and the pappus of 

 thistles and the comose seeds of the 

 milkweed floating in the air, said that 

 summer days were o'er. Up to this 

 time I had been accompanied by the 



dog, "Freddie." He had killed a mole 

 in the woods and was now searching 

 for rabbits. At noon while I was sit- 

 ting on a boulder in a sunny part of 

 the thicket I found that "Freddie" had 

 deserted and gone home. But I had 

 other company. There were crows, 

 oluejays, nuthatches, speckled and 

 downy woodpeckers, and toward even- 

 ing I saw snow-birds in a corn field — 



ON THE EASTERN RIM OF THIS THICK- 

 ET STANDS A GRAND OLD OAK TREE." 



another reminder of the approach of 

 winter. I had an apple and a half 

 do/en walnuts in my pocket. In the 

 dry bed of the brook where cobble- 

 stones were plentiful, I cracked and 

 ate the walnuts. Then going up the 

 hill I >at down and ate the apple. In 



