NOVEMBER BIRDS 



November 



I 



HE glow of the autumnal tints has now 

 almost faded from the hill-side, and is 

 smouldering beneath the ashen gray of 

 naked twigs ; for the sound of rustling 

 leaves now follows us in our rambles in 

 the woods. 



The wilds are almost desolate as to bird voices; the 

 plaintive note of the bluebird is the sweetest note these 

 days, and the jargon of the distant crows is November's 

 own. 



But the crows we have always with us, and their vo- 

 cal strain is never much of a novelty. Most of the great 

 choir of spring songsters are now on their migration to 

 the South the bobolinks (such as have escaped the 

 shot-guns of New Jersey and Pennsylvania), song-spar- 

 rows, thrushes, orioles, vireos, etc. and those that now 

 remain with us are mostly so shy and uncommunicative 

 as to be scarcely recognizable by their friends. 



But these November remnants of the spring and sum- 

 mer are not my " November birds." November, at least 

 with us in New England, has its own especial birds, 

 even as it has its flower. But they are ours for a few 

 days or weeks only brief visitors, birds of passage from 

 the North, that touch and go, as it were, sampling our 



