186 Signals of Autumn 



change their feeding-grounds, they might be 

 expected to modify their diet ; and their rejection 

 of a butterfly helps to explain why they leave us 

 when the rich insect life of midsummer begins to 

 abate. A less discriminating appetite must be 

 one reason, and probably the most important, of 

 the swallow's later stay. When the daddy-long- 

 legs or crane-fly emerges in its great flights in late 

 August and September, swallows can often be seen 

 flocking over the benty pastures to snap up the 

 awkward insects as they rise. 



The grave and even colours of the ripening 

 corn crops make a marked contrast with the shifting 

 hues in a midsummer hayfield. When a wet hay- 

 time prolongs the mowing of the last fields till 

 August, the crop loses all its natural brightness, 

 and stands faded and discoloured, with chaffy 

 seedheads and dry, over-blown flowers. But in 

 June or early July the bloom on the various species 

 of grass makes a shimmer of hues almost as soft 

 and diverse as those in an opal. Quaking grass 

 gleams like inlaid steel, and moon-daisies and pink 

 ragged-robin and yellow rattle diversify the field 

 with flakes of colour. This diversity is in keeping 

 with the spendthrift freedom of spring and earlier 

 summer. By the time of the corn harvest the 

 lengthening nights already tell of autumn ; the 

 strength of later summer is concentrated on ripening 

 its fruits. Then we get the deep and uniform glow 

 of the red-gold wheat, or the paler stain of oats 

 or barley, spread evenly between the darkened 

 hedgerows. Only among thin crops on light, sandy 



