HE TOUCH OJ- AUiUiVliN, 



Photosrapk by J. 11. I'k-uM. 



THE FALL OF THE YEAR 



By R. A. STAIG 



Where are the songs of Spring ? Ah, where are they ? 

 Think not of them; thou hast thy music too." — KeatS. 



HALLOWTIME and the little ones 

 ducking merrily for ruddy apples 

 in the domestic tub — what tre- 

 mendous excitement ! Not in their little 

 hearts can they feel, as we do, the 

 sadness of the withering and the dying 

 down. Feeble grows the sun ; comes 

 the increasing cold, and with the first 

 shocks of frost the chill grey mists 

 of autumnal morning. Dense dews 

 bespane;le blade and leaf with glisten- 

 ing gems. A singularly beautiful tiling 

 the iridescence of these scintillating dew 

 pearls gathered on the gossamer webs ; 

 and what astonishing profusion of this 



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gossamer ! Scarce a hedgerow without 

 its filmy network ; spread over the fields, 

 entangled in the grass, floating in the 

 air, countless silken threads, spun from 

 the spinnerets of restless little spiders. 

 In the calm of a sunny autumn morning 

 thousands of them mount the herbage 

 and the fence-tops, cast the "'balloon- 

 ing " thread, and on tip-toe await the 

 favouring breeze. A little leap, and the 

 spiderlings vanish into space on the wings 

 of the wind — the " gossamer flight," 

 so prophetic of the wintry days to come. 

 Many float high, lengthening the thread 

 as they go ; others, drawing in the silk. 



