286 THE LOG OF THE SUN 



server who can point out which is which when the 

 young birds of the year pass. 



October is apt to be a month of extremes. One 

 day the woods are filled with scores of birds, and 

 on the next hardly one will be seen. Often a sin- 

 gle species or family will predominate, and one 

 will remember "thrush days" or "woodpecker 

 days." Yellow-bellied sapsuckers cross the path, 

 flickers call and hammer in every grove, while in 

 the orchards, and along the old worm-eaten fences, 

 glimpses of red, white, and black show where red- 

 headed woodpeckers are looping from trunk to 

 post. When we listen to the warble of bluebirds, 

 watch the mock courtship of the high-holders, and 

 discover the fall violets under leaves and burrs, 

 for an instant a feeling of spring rushes over us ; 

 but the yellow leaves blow against our face, the 

 wind sighs through the cedars, and we realise that 

 the black hand of the frost wiU soon end the brave 

 eflForts of the wild pansies. 



The thrushes, ranking in some ways at the head 

 of all our birds, drift through the woods, brown 

 and silent as the leaves around them. Splendid 

 opportunities they give us to test our powers of 

 woodcraft. A thrush passes like a streak of 

 brown light and perches on a tree some distance 

 away. We creep from tree to tree, darting nearer 

 when his head is turned. At last we think we are 

 within range, and raise our weapon. No, a leaf 

 is in the way, and the dancing spots of sunlight 



