Impressions 



A fall in temperature of sixteen degrees 

 caused marked changes in existing conditions. 

 Four really warm days sufficed to set June's 

 machinery in motion. The month was in run- 

 ning order and all animate nature accepted the 

 conditions thankfully. Only those people who 

 have de-naturalized themselves complained of 

 the heat. Then a cool wave from Montana and 

 all was confusion. The effect in town, I was 

 told, was to start the senseless question: Are 

 our seasons changing? In the country, the re- 

 sult was to silence a great deal of noisy life and 

 put a quietus on a vast deal of activity. 



Some time ago, in autumn, I cut from a bush 

 and hung in the hall a large pear-shaped nest of 

 the hornet. It held intact for a time, and when 

 it became too shabby to be presentable, was re- 

 moved to the side of the house, where it soon 

 became an object of interest to hornets and 

 house-wrens. The former explored its inner 

 recesses continually; not, as it proved, to re- 

 occupy the nest, but to carry away available bits 

 for a new nest under construction elsewhere. 

 This, at least, was the apparent solution of the 

 matter, for no hornet ever tarried longer than 



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