CHAPTER VI.

REDBREAST-REDSTART-BLUE-THROATED WARBLER.

WHO that has wandered into the woods when autumn has reddened or gilded the leaves, and left few flowers to brighten the wayside, but has missed the loud chorus of song which greeted him from those boughs in summer? Far away over the fields may be seen the flocks of fieldfares and redwings, and where the rivulet wanders among the grass, the woodcock with its pale brown plumage has come to seek its retreat. The gulls are screaming loud over the sea, but the swallows have taken their departure, and the linnets and the buntings have come in flocks to be nearer our dwellings. September has brought a richness of tint to the woodlands, to compensate in some measure for the fulness of song, which shall no more delight us, till months have passed away, and the little birds of spring shall again be busy and

joyous; and those which are now, perchance, singing in warmer climates, shall come back to their old and long-remembered haunts.

And yet the wanderer now may be greeted by an occasional strain of music. Even the notes of the yellowhammer are welcome as the bird flits before us from bush to bush, as if wishing for our companionship; and the goldfinch has begun again to welcome a bright day with a tune; while the thrush or the blackbird now and then accompanies them, or the hedge-sparrow trills a lay from the bough, or the skylark or the woodlark pours its flute-like notes into the air. The songs are all sweet-perhaps the sweeter because we hear them so rarely, but the notes are not so gay as in the brighter days of summer. They have a plaintiveness, which agrees well with the whispers of the autumnal winds among the trees, and with the falling leaves, which those winds scatter before them to die.

But these birds are rather the occasional singers, than the constant minstrels, of the autumnal or winter months. Not so the robin and the wren; for, as the old adage says, "When the robin sings, look out for winter." No weather, save the gloomy

rain, will keep it from carolling a lay, nor cold nor frost give a sadness to the song. The frost-bound earth may be crisp with diamonds, and the leaves all gone from the trees, and not a flower be left save the daisy and the chickweed, yet robin will even then sing to the dreary blast, and might in autumn well suggest such thoughts as the author of the "Christian Year" has so beautifully expressed :

"Sweet messenger of calm decay,

Saluting sorrow as you may,

As one still bent to find or make the best;
In thee and in this quiet mead,

The lesson of sweet peace I read,
Rather, in all, to be resign'd than blest.

""Tis a low chant, according well
With the soft solitary knell,

As homeward, from some grave beloved, we turn;
Or by some lowly death-bed dear,

Most welcome to the chasten'd ear

Of her whom heaven is teaching how to mourn."

We all look upon the Redbreast* (Erythaca rubecula) as the bird of the cold season; not,

*The Redbreast is five inches and three-quarters in length. Whole upper parts olive-brown; the wing-coverts tipped with buff; face, throat, and breast dull orange, margined with grey; lower parts impure white; beak black; feet purplish-brown.