248 Summer's Afterglow 



the woodland scents of dank but fragrant corrup- 

 tion are on the air, and it breathes no sense of 

 spring. 



Yet, in spite of this general decline, there are 

 always a few signs in nature, even as early as 

 mid-November, of the stirrings of the new wave 

 of life. One of these anticipations of spring is 

 the renewed song of the thrushes ; and even before 

 the thrushes began to sing the robins were trilling 

 once more in the early autumn gardens. By this 

 time in November the starlings have taken up their 

 quaint, loquacious notes, and pipe and chatter 

 in the elm-boughs or on the housetops whenever 

 the morning shows a promise of blue sky and a 

 bright and sunlit air. It is only the promise of 

 sunshine that they need : for they can be heard 

 discoursing music in their characteristically con- 

 versational manner when a white morning fog still 

 densely enfolds the earth, and the bough or roof 

 on which they sit is invisible in the cloud. So 

 long as there is that whiter light immediately 

 overhead which proclaims a clear sky above, the 

 starlings will take post and sing. Very early on 

 such dense November mornings they may sometimes 

 be heard clucking and babbling in half-tones near 

 our bedroom windows, while the fog is scarcely 

 tinged with dawn. At such times, when the Sty- 

 gian gloom and chill seem to set even the thought 

 of spring infinitely far away, it is very curious to 

 hear the starling imitating some characteristic 

 spring notes, such as the plover's, though five or 

 six months must have passed since he heard it 



