196 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOKEST. 



ful than any that preceded them, as if nature, like a 

 partial mother, had lavished her best gifts upon these, 

 her youngest children. The bushes that support them 

 are overtopped by other plants, that seem to feel an 

 envious delight in concealing them from observation; 

 but they cannot blot them from our memory, nor be 

 admired as we admire them. The clethra, with its 

 white odoriferous flowers, and the button-bush, with its 

 elegant globular heads, vainly strive to equal them in 

 fragrance or beauty. The proud and scornful thistle 

 rears its head close by their side, and seems to mock at 

 the fragility of these lovely flowers ; but the wild-brier, 

 though its roses have faded, still gives out its undying 

 perfume, as if the essence of the withered flowers still 

 lingered about their leafy habitation, like the spirits of 

 our departed friends, about the places they loved in their 

 lifetime. 



In the latter part of the month, we begin to mark the 

 approaching footsteps of autumn. Twilight is chill ; 

 and we perceive the greater length of the nights, and 

 evening's earlier dew. The morning sun is later in the 

 heavens, and sooner tints the fleecy clouds of evening. 

 The bright verdure of the trees has faded to a more 

 dusky green ; and here and there in different parts of the 

 woods, may be observed a sere and yellow leaf, like the 

 white hairs that are interspersed among the dark brown 

 tresses of manhood, and indicate the sure advance of 

 hoary years. The fields of ripe and yellow grain are 

 gleaming through the open places in the woods, making 

 a pleasant contrast with their greenness, and exhibiting, 

 in the same instant, the signs of a cheerful harvest, arid 

 the melancholy decay of vegetation. The swallows are 

 assembling their little hosts upon the roofs and fences, 



