200 September Sunshine 



by some tireless mechanical power ; to the human 

 ear it grows wearisome, in the sultry days when 

 the air seems waiting for thunder. In September, 

 on the other hand, such bird-voices as are to be 

 heard are mostly sweet and tuneful,while some are 

 full of a strange and haunting charm. After the 

 silence which fell upon them in July, the gradual 

 resumption in September of the robins' and 

 thrushes' songs seems a reaching out of hope to 

 the far spring which lies beyond the winter. The 

 cooler springlike touch in the autumn temperature 

 seems to arouse in them the instincts of spring. 

 Most striking of all is the fitful autumn song of the 

 slender chiff-chaff, which all the summer has 

 haunted the trees of the garden, and comes " before 

 the swallow dares," to make a new note among the 

 budding larches. Among the sycamores and 

 walnut-trees of the lower Alpine slopes, his clear, 

 monotonous cry often peals out with spring-like 

 vigour in the gleam of a September dawn. In 

 England he is not heard so loud or so regularly, 

 when once the general silence has fallen in July. 

 But his voice may yet be caught from time to 

 time among the trees of the garden in Sep- 

 tember and the early days of October, chiming a 

 faint echo of his herald-cry in spring. Yet what 

 leagues of land and sea must the chiff-chaff 

 traverse and retraverse, before spring brings him 

 back to the garden's fringe where he .will nest 

 in May. 



So profound a calm of nature rests on the garden 

 in the September sunshine that, instead of a con- 



