Lake George 



premonition than the cricket's chirp ; indeed, 

 Dickens has given it a classic place among the 

 symbols of contentment and gladness. Yet 

 many seem " adrad of it as of the deth," and 

 when they hear the first cricket of the season, 

 even though it be in the sunniest day of June, 

 it blights them like a shadow, and sends a cold 

 chill through their spirits ; so that, in conse- 

 quence, I judge that this harmless and appar- 

 ently happy creature is one of the best hated 

 specimens in entomology. Nevertheless, to 

 those who enjoy its sound, as well as to those 

 who dislike it, it certainly has a wizard's power 

 to call up visions of colder days and lengthen- 

 ing nights, crowded both with memories and 

 forebodings, scenes of harvest, sunset clouds, 

 silence and dead leaves, and, stretching dimly 

 through the mists, that linger round the closing 

 year, the clammy fingers of November. That 

 first faint chirp, that comes like a cold knock 

 at the mind's door, is a vacant, bloodless sound ; 

 but in its fulness of suggestion, it is one of the 

 most powerful and eloquent of nature's tones. 



Another sound, not associated with autumn, 

 but with evening twilight, and similarly odious 

 to many, is the cry of the whippoorwill — hard- 

 ly to be regarded as a songster, yet vigorous, 

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