194 DAYS OUT OF DO OSS. 



mind that I am treating of a limited locality that has been 

 daily under my observation. Because of the assumption 

 that what is true of one locality must be true of all — at 

 least, I can think of no other explanation — I have time 

 and again had my attention called to conditions noticed 

 by others which conflicted with my observations as de- 

 scribed by me, and the question asked if I was not proba- 

 bly mistaken. It never occurs to a critic that possibly he 

 may have been misled or misinformed. The explanation 

 lies in the fact that even meteorological phenomena are not 

 always wide-spread. My correspondence, on the whole, 

 has proved instructive to me, if not wholly satisfactory to 

 those to whom I have sent replies, for it has led to deter- 

 mining, in many cases, that even but a few miles away, an 

 animal or a plant may have quite different habits and 

 habitats from what obtains near where I live. Let no 

 one be surprised, then, when comparing notes with his 

 neighbor, to find how widely asunder are their impres- 

 sions of the same creatures, plants, and, I may add, phe- 

 nomena. 



I heard a katydid last night, the first of these tiresome 

 singers, and, I am' told, there will be frost in six weeks. 

 It is certainly appropriate that the frost should occur on 

 so suggestive a date as September 21 — ^the day when sum- 

 mer really ends. But August suggests the close of the 

 season in other ways ; the gathering of the reed birds in 

 the marshes, the flocking of the blackbirds, the evening 

 roostward flight of the crows, to say nothing of early 

 asters and golden-rod, among flowers that are now bloom- 

 ing along the dingy, dusty roads. I have noticed all 

 these, and some at a much earlier date than the first faint 

 lisping of a timid katydid ; and all such sights and sounds 

 are similarly suggestive — the summer is drawing to its 

 close. 



