160 Walks in New England 



of the fences, even the barbed-wire atrocities of 

 our civilization are made use of by this happy 

 wanderer. 



Myriad sounds of insects make what the poets 

 have called the dirge of the departing year. And 

 indeed although the grasshoppers have long been 

 very numerous, and the cicadas have crushed the 

 air with their strident cacophony, and the crickets 

 have added their solemn minor to these curious 

 instrumental performances, it is not until the 

 katydid starts his extraordinary utterance that 

 one really feels that fall is at hand. Autumn is a 

 quiet and gentle summation of the period of 

 growth, and it is yet long to last, for the rowen 

 will ripen in the meadows, and the nuts grow 

 brown and drop before the real fall shall come. 

 Here, however, the katydid vaticinates, and says 

 to us : Nevertheless, the end is nigh. 



Thus are the warnings of Nature continually 

 given ; we do not need to wait for the ripening 

 of the apples to learn that they must ripen ; we 

 do not need to see for the first time in the falling 

 of the rose petals the doom of the rose, the fate is 

 instinct in the bud, the blossom foretells the fruit; 

 the dropping fruit too soon asserts the farewell of 

 its spring. The birds add their forecast as they 

 teach their brood to fly, and thenceforth know no 

 more their offspring. The squirrels that frisk 



