250 



IN AUTUMN. 



laden winds. " Birds and blossoms," I replied. 

 Of course he thought me trifling with him, and 

 I asked if he expected me to say " rheumatism." 



What have birds and blossoms to do with 

 such a dreary outlook ? This was evidently the 

 tenor of my friend's thought, although he said 

 nothing more. To him, as it was raining hard, 

 the world was unutterably dreary, and he longed 

 for the crackling blaze upon the andirons which 

 he knew awaited us. In a few moments, as we 

 skirted a bit of woodland, I remarked : " Blue 

 jays are a feature of this month. See ! here are 

 half a dozen." They were very tame and full of 

 merry ways. They hunted the leaf-strewed 

 ground and played bo-peep among the lower 

 branches of the oaks. They screamed, laughed, 

 chattered, and at times uttered that peculiar 

 flute-like note which sounds so strangely in the 

 woods, particularly when the silence of mid- 

 winter broods over all. My friend forgot that it 

 was a dull November day. 



These dandies in their cerulean suits can do 

 no mischief now, and I love them for their vivaci- 

 ty. Their cunning shows out continually, and it 

 needs not the dictum of the naturalist to learn 

 that they are cousins of the crow. That they 

 lived so largely upon eggs during May and June 

 told against them at the time, and they were 

 then the incarnation of fiendishness. Let the 



