Country Roads in August 



one you can hardly think of without asso- 

 ciating him with yellow grainfields and 

 thistledown and katydids and locusts is 

 the little goldfinch, or "yellow-bird." What 

 flocks of them you will startle into flight 

 along any tangled country road in August ! 

 Away they go, billowing above the fields, 

 with that peculiar undulatory flight of theirs 

 brilliant black and yellow males, and 

 sober, greenish-black and yellow females 

 singing as they rise and fall on the air with 

 a cheery chirp that one can never forget 

 who has once heard it. I always have the 

 "August feeling" when I hear a goldfinch 

 the feeling that summer is almost gone, that 

 autumn is at the gate, with its harvest- 

 crowned days and golden, moonlit nights, 

 and winter only a little way behind, veiled 

 in whirling snow and sealing the streams 

 with its icy scepter. 



As the goldfinch is the characteristic bird 

 of August, so the golden-rod is the charac- 

 teristic flower. And how the roadsides 

 gleam with its barbaric plumes! There is 

 a splendor, an Oriental richness, about the 

 golden-rod that is equaled by no other 



