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NATURE'S CALENDAR 



November 2 



the feeling of the world from that in 

 spring. There is perhaps more color in 

 the picture of the woods and waters than 

 in spring, but in place of the lush, strong 

 paintingof the fresh beginnings of the year 

 there are now the [nellow tints that come 

 with age and decline of vitality. Look, for 

 mstance, at such a carpet as is spread un- 

 der the cloudless sky over a level expanse 

 like the great Hackensack meadows 

 near New York, or some of the bay-side 

 marshes along the Chesapeake. The reeds 

 undulate beneath the breeze, with rust- 

 lings and clickings, in response to the 

 white-edged wavelets that laugh along 

 their stems. " Broad flickerings of subtle 

 color-change," as I jotted into my note- 

 book one day, " swept over the vast level 

 morass. They were as delicate as the 

 pulsations of the aurora or of the summer 

 sea, when all the flags turned now their 

 blades, now their edges, under the alter- 

 nating pressure of the wind, or revealed for 

 an instant the gleaming yellow of a thou- 

 sand crowded stems ; and nearer by were 

 white feathery tufts and patches of warm 

 color, where different plants and heather 

 bushes grew, or the bright green of ditch 

 margins traced in emerald the devious 

 course of some tidal rivulet." 



In such places the water has not yet 

 been chilled much by the frosts that have 

 browned and crinkled the flags and per- 

 fected the seeds, and life goes on much as 

 in summer, but more quietly. The fishes 



November 3 



