198 STRA Y FEA THERS FROM MANY BIRDS. 



summer other birds and other music are so abundant 

 that we are apt to overlook him, but in the year's decline 

 and during the period of frost and snow, he imbues the 

 woods with life and fills them with his song. I know of 

 few things more charming than to stand in the woods at 

 dusk on a calm October day and listen to the music of 

 the Robins. There is just possibly a tinge of sadness 

 about his notes, yet this is perhaps their greatest charm. 

 I know they affect me more than the song of any other 

 bird, and I have often and often lingered listening to 

 them unconscious of all other sounds, and lost in the 

 reverie their matchless cadence involuntarily causes. 



Another songster of the autumn is the Wren. So 

 soon as the change of plumage is accomplished this tiny 

 musician resumes his cheery song, and continues it right 

 through the autumn and the winter. We hear him 

 chant his song just as cheerfully amongst the snow- 

 covered banks of a northern trout- stream, as in the 

 luxuriant growth of semi-tropical verdure far away in 

 some distant Algerian oasis, or in Southern Europe, 

 beneath the brilliant sunshine of a Grecian winter sky. 

 Sing he must, in spite of sighing winds and falling 

 leaves ; he reels off his gladsome notes as he hops along 

 the bare hedgerows or skulks in the matted thickets of 

 briars and brambles ; he too chants the dying year's 

 requiem, and makes glad the wintry landscapes with 

 his loud and welcome song. Another beautiful autumn 



