AUGUST. 225 



ning terminated by a night of tremendous thun- 

 der and lightning. 



Towards the end of the month symptoms of 

 the year's decline press upon our attention. 

 The morning and evening air has an autumnal 

 freshness ; the hedge-fruit has acquired a tinge 

 of ruddiness ; the berries of the mountain-ash 

 have assumed their beautiful orange hue; and 

 swallows twitter as they fly, or sit perched in a 

 row upon a rail or the dead bough of a tree. 

 The swift has taken its departure. That beau- 

 tiful phenomenon, the white fog, is again be- 

 held rolling its snowy billows along the valleys ; 

 the dark tops of trees emerging from it as from 

 a flood. 



Now is the season for enjoying the animated 

 solitude of sea-side rambles. The time is also 

 come when sportsmen may renew their health- 

 ful recreation: the season for grouse-shooting 

 upon the moors commencing on the 12th of 

 August, whereas partridge-shooting does not 

 begin till the 1st of September, when the corn- 

 lands may be expected to be cleared. 



August is so termed after Augustus, as July 

 from Julius Caesar. The Romans were accus- 

 tomed to call July and August originally Quin- 

 tilis and Sextilis, or fifth and sixth, dating from 



Q 



