172 THE FRIENDSHIP OF NATURE 



way, and their proportions have a 

 callow roundness. 



The old wrens now are silent, and 

 seem transformed from the cheerful, 

 fussy companions of June days, to sulky 

 misanthropes. Listen to that roulade ! 

 low and uncertain, but one of the 

 young is telling you how he will sing 

 next May. After a few days spent 

 with the autumnal bird flocks, you will 

 decide that the call notes come from 

 the old, but the scraps of song mostly 

 from the young birds, and that such 

 music as autumn yields is not so much 

 a farewell as a prelude. 



On the tenth of September the golden 

 orioles came and swung in a trumpet 

 vine, and a half dozen young ones 

 dashed about in a flycatcher way, lisp- 

 ing a little. The same day, the white- 

 breasted nuthatch was climbing in the 

 great white oak by the spring, perform- 



