224 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



brightening tints of the surrounding shrubbery. Above 

 all, the barberry-bushes, scattered over the hills, some in 

 irregular patches, others following the lines of the stone 

 walls, meet the eye, with their long slender branches 

 fringed with delicate racemes of variegated fruit, chang 

 ing from vermilion to a bright scarlet, and forming 

 hedge-rows and coppices of the most dazzling beauty. 



Yet all these are nothing in comparison with the 

 splendor and variety of the orchard fruits. September 

 is the counterpart of June, and exhibits the transfor 

 mation of the flowers of early summer, into the ripe 

 and ruddy harvest. The wild cherry-trees are heavily 

 laden with their dark purple clusters, and flocks of 

 robins and waxwings are busy, all the day, in their 

 merry plunder among the branches. The fences are 

 overshadowed with fruit-trees of many species, present 

 ing a spectacle more showy than their flowery magnifi 

 cence in early June. But in the fruits there is some 

 thing less lovely than in the flowers, to which imagina 

 tion always assigns some moral attributes. The various 

 fruits of the harvest we prize, as good and bounteous 

 gifts ; but flowers win our affections, like beings en 

 dowed with life and thought ; and when we note their 

 absence or their departure, we feel a painful sense of 

 melancholy, as when we have bid adieu to living 

 friends. With flowers we associate the sweetness, the 

 loveliness, and dear and bright remembrances of spring ; 

 like human beings, they have contributed to our intel 

 lectual enjoyments. But there are no such moral 

 associations connected with the fruits ; and while the 

 orchards are resplendent with their luxuriant beauty, 

 they can never affect the rnind like the sight of the 

 flowers. 



Though autumn is properly the season of fruits, Sep- 



