The Birds’ Calendar 
melancholy song. The hermit thrush is silent- 
ly lurking about the shrubbery—first of all the 
thrushes to arrive in spring, and now the last 
to disappear. Now and then a robin or two 
can be seen flying about, but most of them 
have gone south, while the few that remain are 
fast drifting into winter seclusion. The month 
has also brought a flock of herring-gulls from 
the north. 
My note-book records the singing of the 
white-throats and song sparrows in the milder 
days of the month. The annual ‘< harvest- 
festival’’ (this year on the 30th) was the oc- 
casion of an unusually loud anthem of ‘‘ thanks- 
giving ’’ from the song sparrow, as I was walk- 
ing through the Park—one of those atoms of 
coincidence that linger long in the memory, 
like a word fitly spoken. This was the last full 
burst of song I heard this year; and thus the 
sparrow closed the season, as he ushered in the 
spring ; reminding one of the dandelion—the 
flower that gilds both edges of the year. 
The dandelion and song sparrow seem to 
strike hands across the chasm that separates the 
vegetable and animal kingdoms. Lowly and 
unpretentious, like its musical analogue, the 
dandelion is the earliest of all the flowers in 
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