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train or boat, but each one starts out in his own little air ship for the southern gardens, where seeds and insects are more plentiful in winter than in their northern nesting homes.

All aboard! Away they go, great flocks of them, some to Florida, others to Mexico, the West Indies, or South America. They mount high in the air and fly by night to escape cruel hawks and guns.

They seem to know their geography as they fly over rivers and towns, or follow the coast; but they get into trouble on dark and cloudy nights. Sometimes when they are dazzled by lighthouses or when they fly against tall buildings they fall to the ground, stunned or killed by the blow.

But most of them reach their happy hunting grounds without accident, and after a few days' rest, are singing as gayly as they did when they were with us in the spring.

FLY, little birds, fly where you will,
Fly to the forest, fly to the hill;
Fly to the fields and meadows gay,
Fly to the blue sky far away.

THE THROSTLE

"SUMMER is coming, summer is coming;

I know it, I know it, I know it.

Light again, leaf again, life again, love again.” Yes, my wild little Poet.

Sing the new year in under the blue,

Last year you sang it as gladly.

"New, new, new, new!" Is it, then, so new.

That you should carol so madly?

"Love again, song again, nest again, young again."

Never a prophet so crazy!

And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend.

See, there is hardly a daisy.

"Here again, here, here, here, happy year!"
O warble unchidden, unbidden!

Summer is coming, is coming, my dear,
And all the winters are hidden.

THE SEED CARNIVAL

THE witch-hazel began it.

"Bang! bang! away went its black seeds shooting far over the heads of the golden-rod and

asters, rattling as

[graphic]

they hit stones in

the road or falling

quietly in the soft,

marshy ground.

One of them hit a milkweed pod in the head, reminding her that it was time

to open the door of her pod to let her seed children get out into the world.

A little girl came running through the woods with her dog.

Here's a chance for a ride," thought the burdock and the stick-tight, as they hooked themselves into Rover's shaggy coat, while their neighbors, the Spanish needles, slyly stuck their prongs into the little girl's dress and the tick

trefoils embroidered her coat, clinging fast with

their tiny hooks.

[graphic]

"Now it is time for me to lend a hand," said the autumn wind. He blew great puffs, which sent the thistle-down and the dandelion seeds flying. The milkweed air-ships sailed gracefully in the breeze. They did not seem to think for a moment that they

would all be separated and whisked off to strange places to find homes without ever seeing one another again.

The red squirrel, hunting for seeds in the pine cones, loosened some, which the

wind caught by the sails and bore far away, and dropped into a stream to drift no one knows where.

The poke berry, partridge berry, sumach, and many other seeds took no part in the frolic. They did not mind the wind or the squirrels, for

DANDELION

they knew that the winter birds would see that

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