246 IN AUTUMN. 



tree was in bloom. Nutty October and flowery 

 May, each a delight, and here commingled ! 

 There should have been music, but every bird 

 was mute, and the hyla piped his one note at 

 long-drawn intervals. 



So undemonstrative in every way, so silent 

 save the occasional faint twitterings, these birds 

 of the summer-like afternoon might readily have 

 been passed by unnoticed ; but it will not be so 

 later. They gather energy as the mercury falls, 

 and when the next hoar-frost whitens the 

 meadows and the uplands' weedy fields, then will 

 they shake tall grass and rattle the dry twigs as 

 you approach. They are timid birds, and your 

 shadow or that of a hawk creates a riot in their 

 ranks ; but they find their wits as soon as they 

 lose them, and if you but stand quietly, orderly, 

 seed-hunting is promptly resumed. What, then, 

 is their peculiar merit, that attention should be 

 asked to them ? I am sure that I do not know, 

 unless it be that I love them. This is merit 

 enough in my eyes; and who that spent his 

 youth in the country but recalls the birds of 

 winter? It may be that there was too much 

 work to be done at other times of the year to 

 give heed to the summer songsters ; but never in 

 winter were the days too short to set a rabbit 

 trap, to follow a covey of quails, or, less murder- 

 ously inclined, to listen to the squirrel's bark or 



