JULY 
geese ULY and August are the noontide 
\ 
| of the year’s day, a long ‘still 
hour ’’ when the activities of bird- 
™ life are in a lull—that full-tide 
quietness that intervenes before the current 
ebbs. Their family cares are mostly over by 
the middle of July, their little ones are already 
more than on their own feet, they are on their 
own wings, and with that quick maturing that 
characterizes the lower orders of life, a few 
short weeks have brought their instincts well- 
nigh to the full development. 
With other fortunate people the birds, after 
their short but arduous domestic felicities, are 
having a sort of vacation, albeit a rather quiet 
one, not full of song and merry-making as 
when on their May travels and in delightsome 
June, the queen of all the months; as if a 
touch of seriousness had come over their spirits, 
with the sense that even already, although the 
sun’s rays are as forceful for heat as ever, they 
193 
