guns. The removal of this miscellaneous undergrowth and border shrubbery would as effectually banish the redthrush, the catbird, and the smaller thrushes, as we should extirpate the squirrels by destroying all the nut-bearing trees and shrubs. A smooth-shaven green is delightful to the eye at all times; but lawn is a luxury that is obtained at the expense of the familiar birds that nestle upon the ground. The song-sparrows build their nests in the most frequented places, if they are not liable to be disturbed. Not a rod from our dwelling-house these little birds may have their nests, if the right conditions are there. They are often built on the side of a mound overrun by blackberryvines and wild rose-bushes. He who would entice them to breed in his enclosures must not, for the preservation of a foolish kind of neatness, eradicate the native shrubs and vines as useless weeds. Clipped hedge-rows, which have been recommended as nurseries of birds, are checks to their multiplication. A hedge-row cannot be "properly" maintained without keeping the soil about its roots clear of grass and wild herbage, which are needful to the birds. It is only a neglected hedge-row that is useful to them, or a spontaneous growth of bushes and briers, such as constitutes one of the picturesque attractions of a New England stone-wall. We seldom see one that is not covered on each side with roses, brambles, spirea, viburnum, and other native vines and shrubs, so that in some of our open fields the stone-walls, with their accompaniments, are the most attractive objects in the landscape. Along their borders Nature calls out, in their season, the anemone, the violet, the cranesbill, the bellwort, the convolvulus, and many other flowers of exceeding beauty, while the rest of the field is devoted to tillage. The "nice man" who undertakes farming will grudge Nature this narrow strip on each side of his fences, though she never fails to cover it with beauty. He considers it an offence against neatness and order to allow Nature these simple privileges, and employs his hired men to keep down every plant that dares to peep out from the fenceborder without a license from the owner. Such a miscellaneous hedge-row would constitute a perfect aviary of singing-birds, and the benefits they would confer upon the farmer by ridding his lands of noxious insects would amply compensate him for the space left unimproved. Then might we hear the notes of the wood-thrush and the red-mavis in the very centre of our villages, and hundreds of small birds of different species would cheer us by their songs where at present only a solitary individual is to be heard. From the earliest times it has been customary to encourage the multiplication of swallows by the erection of bird-houses in gardens and enclosures. Even the Indians furnished a hospitable retreat for the purple martin by fixing hollow gourds and calabashes upon the branches of trees near their cabins. It is generally believed that this active little bird is capable of driving away hawks and crows from its vicinity by repeated annoyances. The custom of supplying martins with a shelter has of late grown into disuse. The wren and the bluebird may be encouraged by similar accommodations. But as these two species are not social in their habits of building, like the martin, a separate box must be supplied for each pair of birds. The wren is an indefatigable destroyer of insects and one of the most interesting of our familiar songsters. The bluebird, which is not less familiar, is delighted with the hollow branch of an old tree in an orchard, but is equally well satisfied with a box. AUGUST. THE plains and uplands are green with a second growth of vegetation, and nature is rapidly repairing the devastation committed by the scythe of the mower. But the work of the haymaker is not completed. He is still swinging his scythe among the tall sedge-grasses in the lowlands; and the ill-fated flowers of August may be seen lying upon the greensward among the prostrate herbage. The work of the reapers is also begun, and the sheaves of wheat and rye display their wavy rows to gladden and bless the husbandman. Flocks of quails, reared since the opening of the spring flowers, are diligent among the fields, after the reapers have left their tasks. They may be seen slyly and silently creeping along the ground, and now and then lifting their timid heads as if jealous of our approach. The loud whistling of the guardian of the flock, perched at a short distance upon a wall, may also be heard, and as we saunter carelessly along the field-path, a brood of partridges, rising suddenly almost from under our feet, will often astound our ears with their loud whirring flight. Since the fading of the roses, the birds have generally become silent, as if the presence of these flowers were necessary to inspire them with song. They have grown timid and have forsaken their usual habits, no longer warbling at the season's feast or rejoicing in the heyday of love. They fly no longer in pairs, but assemble in flocks, which may be seen rising and settling over different parts of the landscape. Some species are irregularly scattered, while others gather into multitudinous flocks, and seem to be enjoying a long holiday of festivities, while preparing to leave their native fields. Their songs, lasting only during the period of love, are discontinued since it is past, and their young are no longer awaiting their care. On every new excursion into the fields I perceive the sudden absence of some important woodland melodist. During the interval between midsummer and early autumn one voice after another drops away, until the little song-sparrow is left again to warble alone in the fields and gardens, where he sang the earliest hymn of rejoicing over the departure of winter. Since the birds have become silent, they have lost their pleasant familiarity with man, and have acquired an unwonted shyness. The warblers that were wont to sing on the boughs just over our heads, or at a short distance from our path, now keep at a timid distance, chirping with a complaining voice, and flee at our approach, before we are near enough to observe their altered plumage. The plovers have come forth from the places where they reared their young and congregate in large flocks upon the marshes; and as we stroll along the sea-shore, we are often agreeably startled by the sudden twittering flight of these graceful birds, aroused from their haunts by our unexpected intrusion. It is now almost impossible for the rambler to penetrate some of his old accustomed paths in the lowlands, so thickly are they interwoven with vines and trailing herbs. Several species of cleavers with their slender prickly branches form a close network among the ferns and rushes; and the smilax and blackberry vines weave an almost impenetrable thicket in our ancient pathway. The fences are festooned with the blue flowers of the woody nightshade and the more graceful plants of the glycine are twining among the faded flowers of the elder and viburnum. The lowlands were never more delightful than at the present time, affording many a pleasant arbor beneath the shrubbery, where the waters have dried away and left the greensward as sweetly scented as a bower of honeysuckles. In these places are we tempted to linger for refreshment on summer noondays, bowers where it is delightful to repose beneath the shade of slender birches whose tremulous foliage seems to whisper to us some pleasant messages of peace. All around us the convolvulus has trailed its delicate vines, and hung out its pink and striped bell-flowers; and the clematis has formed an umbrageous trellis-work over the tops of the trees. Its white clustering blossoms spread themselves out in triumph above the clambering grape-vines, forming deep shades which the sun cannot penetrate, overhanging and overarching the green paths that lead through the lowland thickets. When the pale orchis of the meads is dead, and the red lily stands divested of its crown; when the arethusa no longer bends its head over the stream, and the later violets are weeping incense over the faded remnants of their lovely tribe, then I know that the glory of summer has departed, and I look not until the coming of the asters and the goldenrods to see the fields again robed in beauty. The meeker flowers have perished since the singing-birds have discontinued their songs, and the last rose of summer may be seen in solitary and melancholy beauty, the lively emblem of the sure decline of all the beautiful objects of this life, the lovely symbol of beauty's frailty and its transientness. When the last rose is gone, I look around with sadness upon its late familiar haunts; I feel that summer's beauty now is past, and sad mementos rise where'er I tread. - It is my delight to seek these last-born of the roses, and to my sight they are more beautiful than any that |