THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS 35 



The songsters of the seed-time are silent at the 

 reaping of the harvest. Other minstrels take up 

 the strain. It is the heyday of insect life. The 

 day is canopied with musical sound. All the songs 

 of the spring and summer appear to be floating, 

 softened and refined, in the upper air. The birds, 

 in a new but less holiday suit, turn their faces 

 southward. The swallows flock and go; the bobo- 

 links flock and go; silently and unobserved, the 

 thrushes go. Autumn arrives, bringing finches, 

 warblers, sparrows, and kinglets from the north. 

 Silently the procession passes. Yonder hawk, sail- 

 ing peacefully away till he is lost in the horizon, 

 is a symbol of the closing season and the departing 

 birds. 



1863. 



