242 Summer's Afterglow 



some wild ducks. Best loved of all berries by the 

 birds are the translucent ruby clusters of the rowan 

 or mountain-ash, which make but thin fare for 

 human beings of the present generation, though 

 they seem to have been acceptable to our ancestors. 

 It is amusing to watch the raids of a vagrant October 

 flock of missel-thrushes on any well-berried moun- 

 tain-ash which stands within sight of the house 

 windows. At once shyer and more daring than 

 the smaller song-thrushes, the missel-thrushes fill 

 the garden, so long as the berries last, with per- 

 petual flights and sallies, swift and stealthy on- 

 rushes, harsh alarm notes from tree- top watch 

 towers, and all the tumult and confusion of wings 

 in rout. The berries of the mealy guelder-rose, 

 or wayfaring tree, and of the wirier water-guelder 

 are hardly less appreciated than those of the rowan ; 

 but they are less large and numerous, and are 

 therefore not made the object of such vigorous 

 raids. In spite of the widespread belief that an 

 abundance of berries in autumn foretells a hard 

 winter, neither reason nor experience can trace any 

 such connexion. The abundance or scarcity of 

 berries in any autumn is an effect of the weather 

 which is past, and in no way a prognostication of 

 that to come. We can divine nothing of the 

 weather which awaits the birds and ourselves in 

 the coming winter from any indication supplied 

 by rowan-berry, or rose-haw, or sloe. 



Roaming in search of food over wider or narrower 

 extents of land and sea, as the character of the 

 season impels them, the birds bring an underlying 



