226 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



The golden crowned kinglet and the winter 

 wren, the white-throated sparrow and the brown 

 creeper, all may be looked for between the 20th 

 of September and the passing of the month, 

 though as for the brown creeper those two ardent 

 bird students, Frederic H. Kennard and Fred 

 McKechnie have demonstrated that it is not a 

 winter visitant only but an occasional all-the- 

 year resident, they having found nests and eggs 

 in the Ponkapoag swamp. So the list might be 

 enlarged vastly till we found a new comer or a 

 new goer or both for every day in this month 

 of transition, September. 



To me, though, the most potent signs of the 

 presence of autumn are neither the migrants nor 

 the changing foliage. They are the mysterious 

 voices of the woodland which change at about 

 this time often to an eerier and lonelier note. 

 The voice of late September winds in the trees 

 has a wild call of melancholy in it. There is a 

 spot in my wood where an ancient pine, dead and 

 stark long ago, lies in the arms of a sturdy scarlet 

 oak. All summer the leaning trunk has shed 

 bark and small limbs, silently, patiently waiting, 

 final dissolution. With the coming of cool au- 



