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Nature Notes: 
THF. SELBORNE SOCIETrS MAGAZINE. 
No. 225. SEPTttMBER, 1908. Vot.. XIX. 
A SEPTEMBER RAMBLE. 
T is mid-September, and summer, long delayed, has 
come at last. Sunshine so brilliant never gladdened 
our hearts in June, and on this, the most perfect day 
of all this halcyon time, I have wandered into the 
New Forest, there to steep myself to the full in all the delight 
of God-given time and place. 
How the sun blazed, and the air shimmered and throbbed 
with heat, as I tramped across the heath, and how pleasant to 
cross the threshold of the wood and gain the kindly shelter of 
its trees! With the shade a silence falls — a stillness absolute, 
unbroken, as though all Nature for a moment held its breath. 
Then, as if loth to mar the perfect hush, a little drowsy breeze 
goes sighing through the leaves, a wood-wren’s plaintive call 
comes from the trees, a “yaffle’s” laughing cry rings out, 
abrupt and startling, and the spell is broken. 
Through enchanted glades a grassy path winds under the 
great trees : above my head is a canopy of sun-flecked green: 
a carpet of green is beneath my feet, while to right and left the 
sunlight falls in dappled patches on purple heather, on bracken, 
and on moss. 
Presently the sound of many little bird-voices proclaims 
the presence of a travelling party of titmice, and soon I see 
them, flitting from branch to branch. Long-tailed tits perch 
confidingly on bare boughs just overhead, scolding the intruder in 
garrulous tones, then, with exquisite rustle of little wings, dart 
onward and away. Blue tits and cole tits follow, and there are 
nuthatches, too, amongst the wanderers, for soon their ringing, 
melodious calls drown the smaller cries. 
Now the wood thins, and from dense masses of spreading 
bracken comes the loud, stridulating noise of many grasshoppers, 
who seem, when I try to find them, as elusive as will-o’-the- 
wisp. Dragonflies, with filmy transparent wings, dart hither 
