AN OCTOBER DIARY. 266 



By the end of the month I shall have good ki:i- 

 dling for the frosty November evenings, when the 

 andirons will come into use. To-day I choose a stout 

 stem of the giant hyssop. How oddly shaped it is ! 

 Accurately square, and with sharp, projecting angles, it 

 is possibly safe from the hungry cows that nibble at 

 every growth at this time of year. The text-books are 

 careful to state the fact of the stem being square, but 

 give us no reason why it is so ? Is such a fact past 

 finding out ? Still deeper in the woods, color-hunting 

 as I walked,! came upon gum-trees with an abundance 

 of berries, the robins and flickers associating very good- 

 naturedly, as they fed upon the sour fruit. Collec- 

 tively, they numbered more birds than I had seen in 

 a week, and even their monotonous chatter was not un- 

 welcome. It seems a little strange that the flicker, or 

 pigeon woodpecker, which for eleven months is insec- 

 tivorous, should be so fond of these sour berries. It is 

 not attracted merely by wormy berries, as I have tested. 

 The fruit is eaten as such, and not as insect-traps. 



The meadows at sunrise, and even now, an hour later, 

 lay hidden in a fog. Not a thin mist that moved 

 with the wind, but a tough, tangible, semi-liquid cloud. 

 Once or twice each year I see just such ; bathe in them, 

 and therefrom date my malarial aches and pains. 

 From the brow of the bluff, to which this fog did not 

 ascend by several yards, that part of the landscape 

 usually filled by an expanse of meadow now appears 

 as a placid lake, with here and there a projecting rock ; 

 for such the tops of the nearest tall shag-bark hickories 

 appeared to be. I walk to the sharply defined edge of 



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