JULY. 



THE month of balmy breezes and interminable ver- 

 dure has given place to one of parching heat and sun- 

 shine, which has seared the verdant brows of the hills, 

 and driven away the vernal flowers that crowned their 

 summits. They have fled from the uplands to escape 

 the heat and drought, and have sought shelter in wet 

 places or under the damp shade of woods. Many of the 

 rivulets that gave animation to the prospect in the spring 

 are now marked only by a narrow channel, filled with a 

 luxuriant growth of herbs, that follow its winding course 

 along the plain ; and the shallow pools that watered the 

 early cowslips are turned into meads of waving herbage. 

 Millions of bright flowers are nodding their heads over the 

 tall grass, but we scarcely heed them, for they seem like 

 the haughty usurpers of the reign of the meeker flowers 

 of spring. The cattle have taken shelter under the trees 

 to escape the hot beams of the sun, and many may be 

 seen standing in pools or the margins of ponds for refresh- 

 ment and protection from insects. All animated nature 

 is indulging a languid repose, and the feeble gales hardly 

 shake the leaves of aspen-trees as they pass by them, 

 faint and exhausted with the sultry heats of July. 



As June was the month of music and flowers, July is 

 the harvest month of the early fruits; and, though the 

 poet might prefer the former, the present offers the most 

 attractions to the epicure. Strawberries, that gem the 

 meads, and raspberry-bushes that embroider the stone- 

 walls and fences, hang out their ripe, red clusters of berries 



