A SUMMER AT HOME. 243 



grasses is not yet ripe, but they find a substitute, I sup- 

 pose, and never go hungry. The marsh-harriers know 

 just as well as does the gunner that the birds are there, 

 and to-day several of these broad-winged hawks were 

 dipping over the reeds, beating their tops, that the 

 frightened birds might show themselves. I do not be- 

 lieve they gain much for their trouble, as the cover is 

 too dense and easily entered for ever so large a falcon 

 to catch so small a finch. Such sights are said to be in- 

 dications of the close of summer; and yet we have had 

 but a part of summer weather, as yet ; and it may be 

 weeks before there are chilly nights, that quiet the hum 

 of insects, bid the frogs and toads cease their drowsy 

 monotones, and favor us with a leaf-painting frost. 



The swamp rose-mallow is now in bloom, and the 

 prettiest spots are where the congregated white and red 

 blossoms bedeck the scene. Here is an admirable in- 

 stance of where distance lends enchantment to the view. 

 These flowers are not pretty when closely examined. 

 They are coarse in texture, rude in arrangement, harsh 

 in coloring ; yet, collectively and from afar, they equal 

 the frost's best efforts to variegate the forest. 



A cool, wet summer has the advantage of preserving 

 the foliage until September. To-day I could count nine 

 distinct shades of green on the hillside, which spread 

 out as a beautiful panorama before me, as I sat on the 

 edge of the marsh. It was living two lives in one to sit 

 there. A turn of the head was only needed to pass 

 from forest to fen ; and two more dissimilar aspects of 



