LVI 



A MISGUIDED thrush was vociferating outside when I 

 was shaving this morning (November 1, 1908), A mild 

 endeavouring, I suppose, to persuade some Afunn 

 credulous female that the time had arrived, not for 

 anxious provision against approaching rigours, but for 

 the manufacture of those sky-blue eggs which reflect 

 the only rays of bright colour at any stage of the 

 existence of this subfusc species. One can hardly be 

 surprised at this bird blundering about the calendar, 

 so warm and spring-like has the weather been ever 

 since Michaelmas, so still the atmosphere and so 

 brilliant the sunshine. Only on the night of October 

 25 has the mercury fallen to freezing-point, and to- 

 day we have been gathering mushrooms, fresh and 

 succulent, from the green ' heughs ' bordering on Luce 

 Bay. 



The autumnal leaf change came very late this season, 

 but its splendour is enduring longer, by reason that 

 the prevailing anticyclone has warded off the assault 

 of Atlantic storms. If there is one tree more beautiful 

 than another just now, it is the Himalayan Cotoneaster 

 frigidus. Most of the genus are mere shrubs, but this 



