THE THORN. 
121 
there is another in Florida, and there are several more on the Pacific 
coast, one reaching as far north as Nootka Sound. They frequently 
appear with us before the chimney-swallows, and I have seen one 
about our own flower-borders, during a mild autumn, as late as 
the first of December ; they usually disappear, however, much 
earlier, remaining, perhaps, a month or six weeks later than the 
swallows. They winter in the tropics, and are said to make their 
long journeys in pairs, which looks as though they mated for life, 
like some other birds. 
Saturday, IQth. — Warm ; thermometer 79 in the shade at five 
o'clock. Long drive down the valley toward evening. The 
farms are looking very pleasantly : the young grain waving in the 
breeze is headed, but not yet colored ; the meadows are becoming 
tinged with their own proper blossoms, the red sorrel flowers, 
golden buttercups, daisies, and clover appearing successively, 
until the whole field is gay. The crops generally look very well, 
promising a good return to the husbandman for his labor. In 
low grounds, about the brooks, the purple flags are now blooming 
in profusion, and the thorn-trees are still in flower on many banks. 
There is a tradition that during the Avar of the Revolution the 
long spines of the thorn were occasionally used by the American 
women for pins, none of which were manufactured in the country ; 
probably it was the cockspur variety, which bears tlie longest 
and most slender spines, and is now in flower. The peculiar con- 
dition of the colonies rendered privations of this kind a great ad- 
ditional evil of that memorable struggle ; almost everything in the 
shape of the necessaries and luxuries of life came then from the 
Old World. Several native plants were prepared at that time to 
take the place of the prohibited souchong and bohea ; the " New 
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