272 STUDIES IN THE EIELD AND FOREST. 



ments. In the vocal season, the merry voices of birds 

 and insects yield life to the inanimate objects around 

 us, and nature herself seems to be talking with us, in 

 our solitary but not lonely walk. But when these gay 

 and social creatures are absent, our once companionable 

 excursions are converted into actual solitude. No cheer- 

 ful voices are speaking to us ; no bright flowers are 

 smiling upon us, and we feel like one who is left alone 

 in the world, to muse over the scenes of departed joys 

 and absent friends. 



But the silence to which I have alluded is chiefly 

 that of the singing birds, whose voices are the natural 

 language of love and rejoicing. There are still many 

 sounds abroad which are characteristic of the season. 

 Hollow winds are sighing through the half leafless 

 wood, and the sharp rustling of the dry oak leaves is 

 heard aloft in the place of the warbling of birds and the 

 soft whispering of zephyrs. The winds as they sweep 

 over the shrubbery produce a shrill sound, that chills us 

 in imagination, as the bleak foreboding of winter. The 

 passing breezes have loot that mellowness of tone that 

 comes from them in summer, while floating over the 

 tender herbs and flexible grain. Every sound they now 

 produce is sharper, whether they are rustling among the 

 dry cornfields, or whistling among the naked branches 

 of the trees. Since the forests have shed their leaves, 

 the voices of the remaining birds are heard with more 

 distinctness, and the woodland echoes are repeated, 

 with a greater number of reverberations, among the 

 rocks and hills. 



Our rural festivities are passed, the harvest is gathered, 

 and all hands are busy in preparing for the comforts of 

 the winter fireside. The days are shortened and the 

 sun at noonday looks down upon us with a slanting 



