The Autumn Wood-Path 



close to the house, and cheered us all sum- 

 mer with its flutelike morning and evening 

 song, becomes in October one of the wildest 

 and most suspicious of birds, retiring to the 

 deep woods and adding its sharp, suspicious, 

 chirping cry to that of the blue jay and the 

 crow. I have seen whole flocks of robins, 

 in October, miles within the heart of an up- 

 land forest, where you scarcely ever find 

 them during the spring and summer. Shy, 

 suspicious creatures they are now, taking 

 to wing with great swiftness and clamor be- 

 fore the rambler gets even within gun-range 

 of them as if he would care to shoot such 

 plebeian game if he could ! But, like bobo- 

 link, who becomes the pot-hunter's reed- 

 bird in winter, robin seems to aspire to the 

 dignity of becoming a game-bird as soon as 

 the shooting-season opens, doubtless quite 

 ignorant of the fact that nearly all our 

 Northern States by a special law protect his 

 russet body from destruction. 



As the wood-path climbs a dry, sun-baked 

 ridge, we come to a succession of little round 

 hollows, shallow pits in the powdery loam, 

 where that genuine and royal game-bird, the 

 ruffed grouse, has lain, like a roadside hen, 

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