242 NATURES STORY. OF THE YEAR 



fierceness of the sun. The green warblers were 

 their nurses, singing among them, and removing 

 the noxious caterpillars. But with the advance of 

 spring the enemies became more numerous. 

 Infinite in number and variety, armed with keen 

 weapons, they rushed upon the leaf, bored it 

 through and through, and gnawed their way about 

 its tissues. It could offer only a passive resist- 

 ance. Slowly but surely the fibres lost vitality. 

 The first frost completed the ruin ; and now, when 

 the woods are silent, and all the merry warblers 

 are gone, when mists lie dense and all bright in- 

 sects have vanished, mother earth recalls her rosy 

 children from the treetops. Death severs the leaf, 

 and the slow breeze lowers it gently to the ground. 

 And through the silence the robin sings its 

 requiem. The wind lifts the lifeless fragments 

 and lays them quietly in the shade; and the 

 stream murmurs a dirge as it bears them on its 

 bosom, in a long procession, to their bourne, carry- 

 ing them tenderly over the boulders to a grave 

 beneath the weeping sedges on the sandbanks. 



Pleased as we all are by the rich hues of trees in 



