September 



delight is manifest in every motion and sound. 

 But by autumn this has become mellowed into 

 quietness and deliberation. Their spirits 

 change with the times. In spring the foliage, 

 too, comes forth with a bound a spring and 

 an entire tree will sometimes be decked with 

 verdure or bloom almost in a day. In autumn 

 the. leaves fall gradually, with a sort of ripe re- 

 flection, just as the summer birds steal away a 

 few at a time, and we hardly know when they 

 are gone ; while the migrants from the north 

 come in small and straggling flocks, and in a 

 few days silently go south. There is no spring- 

 ecstasy in the waning year. It is not exactly 

 a mood of melancholy ; rather it is like the 

 equanimity and repose of maturity. They are 

 only short-lived little creatures at the longest, 

 and they would burn out quicker than they do, 

 if after a period of such intense life and high 

 pressure they did not annually bank their fires 

 early. 



Another reason for the unsatisfactoriness of 

 the fall - passage is the much more limited 

 number of species one is likely to see. My 

 own record for September is less than half the 

 extent of my May list ; and while this may not 

 be the average proportion for the two months 

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