Now softened suns a mellow lustre shed,
The laden orchards glow with tempting red;

On hazel boughs the clusters hang embrowned,

And with the sportsman's war the new-shorn fields resound.

THIS is, in general, a very pleasant month, the distinguishing softness and serenity of autumn prevailing through great part of it. The days are now very sensibly shortened, and the mornings and evenings are chill and damp, though the warmth is still considerable in the middle of the day. This variation of temperature is one cause why autumn is an unhealthy time, especially in the warmer climates, and in moist situations; persons who are obliged to go abroad early or late in this season should be guarded by warm clothing against the cold fogs.

In late years, and especially in the northern parts of the island, a good deal of corn is abroad at the beginning of September; on which account, the day on which partridgeshooting commences, was a few years ago deferred by the legislature from the first to the fourteenth of this month, but the act has since been repealed.

The partridge is one of the species of the order of gallina, which includes those birds that have a strong, hard, somewhat curved bill, short wings, rather long and muscular legs, and the toes terminated by short thick straight nails; of

this conformation the necessary result is their feeding on grain, and other seeds, which they find by scratching up the earth, and their living chiefly on the ground, making much use of their legs, and little of their wings.

Partridges pair early in the spring, and about the month of May deposit their eggs to the number of sixteen or eighteen, in a shallow hole on the bare ground; the hen sits twenty-two days, and the young come forth full feathered like chickens, and capable of running, and picking up ants, slugs, grain, or any other food that is shown to them by their parents.

While the corn is standing they have a ready and safe retreat from most of their numerous enemies, and when they happen to be surprised, will exhibit wonderful instances of instinct in their attachment to their young, and of courage and skill in their defence. If danger approaches their young brood before they are able to fly, both the parents immediately take wing, and the young ones cower down under the nearest shelter, where they remain perfectly motionless; the hen, after having flown two or three hundred yards, lights on the ground, and immediately running along the furrows, soon arrives at the place whence she set out, collects her little family, and withdraws them to a place of safety; the cock, in the mean time, endeavours to engage the attention of the sportsman, by fluttering before him a few yards at a time, as if wounded, and thus draws him, in the eagerness of pursuit, to a suficient distance from his young after which, when all danger is over, the call of the female directs him to her retreat. In the absence of the cock the hen will take this part upon herself. Of this an interesting example is found in White's Naturalist's Calendar.

"A hen partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along, shivering with her wings, and crying out as if wounded, and unable to get from us. While the dam acted this distress, the boy who attended me saw her brood, that was small and unable to fly, run for shelter into an old foxearth under the bank."

When the corn is cut, partridges generally resort in the day-time to groves and covers, to be out of reach of birds of prey; but at night the dread of foxes, weasels, and other

small wild quadrupeds that haunt these sheltered places, drives them to the open stubble, in the middle of which

... they nestle together, and spend the hours of darkness. Their most formidable enemy, however, is man, from whom they have no means of escape his pointers discover them in their most secret hiding-places, and either oblige them to take wing and expose themselves to be shot, or to endure the still greater danger of being enclosed in nets on the ground by whole Coveys at once.

A singular vegetable production which is gathered this month, is saffron. The saffron plant is a species of crocus, cultivated chiefly in Essex, on a considerable tract of ground, about ten miles across, between Cambridge and Saffron Walden. The saffron-grounds vary in extent from one to three acres, which, after being well manured, are planted some time in the month of July, allowing about 200,000 roots to an acre: these flower successively for about three weeks in September, and the blossoms are collected every day before they are thoroughly expanded : when gathered, they are immediately spread upon a large table, and the fine branched filaments on the inside of the flower, called stamens or chives, are pulled out by women and children; all the rest is thrown away. The crop thus procured is dried in flat square cakes, and then becomes ready for sale. A saffron-ground lasts three years; and on an average yields for the first crop about ten pounds of wet saffron, or two of dried, per acre; the produce of the two next years is about twenty-four pounds of dried: so that the whole useful produce of an acre in three years, is not more than twenty-six pounds weight. Saffron is of a deep orange colour, and a very strong aromatic odour: it is used in medicine as a cordial, and was formerly much esteemed in cookery. It gives a fine bright yellow dye. That produced in England is generally esteemed the best.

Very few other flowers, except the ivy, open in this month; but some degree of variety is introduced into the landscape by the ripening fruits.

The labours of the husbandman have but a very short intermission for no sooner is the harvest gathered in, than the fields are again ploughed up and prepared for the winter corn, rye, and wheat, which are sown during this month and the next.

At this time it is proper to straiten the entrance of bee-hives, that wasps and other depredators may have less opportunity of getting in and devouring the honey.

The annual arrival of the herrings offers at this time a peculiar and valuable harvest to the inhabitants of the eastern and western coasts of the island.

The great winter rendezvous of the herrings is within the arctic circle, where they continue many months to recruit

HERRING FISHING.

themselves after spawning in those unfathomed depths, that swarm with insects upon which they feed. This innumerable army begins to put itself in motion in the spring, in order to deposit its spawn in the warmer latitudes: its forerunners appear off the Shetland islands in April and May, but the grand shoal does not appear till June; it is attended by gannets, and other sea birds, in prodigious multitudes, and vast numbers of dog-fish and porpoises, all of which are supported without sensibly diminishing a host, The in which millions more or less are of no account. breath and depth of the main body is such as to alter the appearance of the very ocean; it is divided into distinct columns of five or six miles in length, and three or four in breadth, driving the water before them with a very perceptible rippling; sometimes they sink for the space of ten or fifteen minutes, then rise again to the surface, and in bright weather exhibit a resplendency of colours like a field of gems.

The first check that this army experiences in its march southwards is from the Shetland Isles, which divide it into two parts; the eastern wing passes on to Yarmouth, the great and ancient mart for herrings, filling every bay and creek with its numbers; it then advances through the British channel, and disappears. The western wing, after offering itself to the great fishing stations in the Hebrides, proceeds towards the north of Ireland, where it is obliged to make a second division; the one takes to the western side, and is scarcely perceived, being soon lost in the immensity of the Atlantic; but the other, passing into the Irish sea, feeds and rejoices the inhabitants of most of the coasts that border on it.

Towards the end of the month, the common swallow disappears. There have been various conjectures concerning the manner in which these birds, and some of their kindred species, dispose of themselves during the winter. The swift is the only one of this genus, about which there appears to be little or no controversy, its early retreat and strength of wing rendering its migration almost certain; but with regard to the rest, namely, the swallow, the martin, the sand martin, there are three current opinions, each of which deserves consideration.