28 AUTUMN. 
first to go ;the Sand Martin we never see at Wycombe, there 
being no suitable places for nidification. The song of the bird is 
hushed in the fields, the Robin only continues to enliven us with 
his cheerful warblings, and this he will do the winter through, 
joined occasionally by a Skylark. Strange that the feathered 
tribes should only send out their joyous carollings through such 
a short period of the year—that of rearing their young ; it would 
seem that love is then ‘ the lord of all,” and is thus shown; for 
when their duties are finished the love and the song cease too. 
The insects flit lazily about, the bee and the wasp put in an oc- 
casional appearance, and a few stridulous sounds from the grass- 
hopper and crickét emerge from warm grassy banks; the dor- 
mouse and the squirrel are hoarding up their supply of winter 
provisions, and snails are congregating in colonies under the 
tangled roots of the trees ; all the busy hum and music of summer 
are dying away. 
But fresh sights of beauty meet the eye as we ramble along 
our lanes; festoons and bunches of ripe fruit of every colour 
decorate the fading masses of leaves—the dark berry of the Dog- 
wood shadowed by the purple foliage and ‘‘ ensanguined ” stems, 
the shining black berries of the Privet, the brilliant fruits of the 
Woody Nightshade, and the Red and Black Bryony, the dark 
purple of the Guelder Rose—all looking so very beautiful that we 
feel tempted to try their flavour. But beware; many of them 
are forbidden fruits, and may bring on a sleep that knows no 
waking. More harmless are the “scarlet hips and stony haws ” 
that cover the rose and hawthorn—the food of many a truant 
schoolboy since Cowper’s days. 
Very soon we shall have the mosses out in all their beauty, 
and as we hunt among them we shall turn up many a beetle and 
caterpillar, snugly ensconced for the winter, abiding marvellously 
without food during the long months when vegetation would 
yield them nothing: these, and hosts of other things will pass 
under our notice only by our exercising a moderate amount of 
observation. So let no one sink into despondency from an idea 
that there is nothing for the Naturalist to see, and nothing to do 
till next Spring. 
