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SEPTEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH.-Ah me! there are signs of winter. All the swallows are collecting preparatory to their annual journey. How it saddens my heart, for before we meet again winter's cold will sweep over the land. I see them sitting in rows on the telegraph wires. They are mostly young birds, and I see that they rest while their busy parents dash over the meadows and commons, flying up to the wires ever and anon with a mouthful of food for their offspring. The young are, however, mostly able to look after themselves by now. On fine days swallows still sing on the wing, but the woodpigeon is almost silent, and friend robin redbreast only sings a very little. By-and-bye, he promises, he will sing to cheer our winter. The titmice are calling from tree to tree, doubtless to remind us to order in hemp-seed in plenty of time. On the common, where the low autumnal gorse is golden, blending with the heather which dying turns tawny brown, meadow-pipits and stone-chats may be heard uttering a cry or two, while overhead martins pass with "crick crick." By the brook side we were surprised at the loud noise made by a pair of yellow wagtails which we startled from the bank. Apple-trees are red and gold with fruit, and filberts are waiting to be gathered, unless indeed we wish the nuthatches to do the work for us. We must have patience; winter will come and go, and summer be with us again. Patience grows as years pass.

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-NINTH.

MICHAELMAS DAY.-ST. MICHAEL AND ALL Angels.

"September, when by custom (right divine)

Geese are ordain'd to bleed at Michael's shrine.”

"And when the tenauntes come

To paie their quarter's rent,

-CHURCHILL.

They bring some fowle at Midsummer,
A dish of fish at Lent,

At Christmasse a capon,

At Michaelmasse a goose,

And some-what else at New-yere's tide,
For feare their lease flie loose."

-GASCOIGNE.

There is a very old saying, "If you eat a goose on Michaelmas Day, you will never want money all the year

round."

"So many dayes old the moon is on Michaelmass-day, so many floods after."—1661.

"A goose is the emblem of meere modestie.”

"The Michaelmas Daisy, amonge dead Weeds,
Blooms for St. Michael's valorous deeds."

"To SALT A GOOSE.

"Take a fat Goose and bone him, but leave the brestbone, wipe him with a clean cloath, then salt him one fortnight, then hang him up for one fortnight or three weeks, then boyl him in running water very tender, and serve him with Bay leaves."-The Compleat Cook, 1656.

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OCTOBER FIRST.-"For flowers we have single Anemonies, Tube-roses, Lawrel, Time Flowers, Velvet Flowers, Jasmins, Lawrel-Rose, Ciclamens."-The Compleat Gardner, 1649.

"In October, come Services; Medlars; Bullises; Roses Cut or Removed to come late; Holly-okes; and such like.” -BACON.

"Now soften'd suns a mellow lustre shed,

The laden orchards glow with tempting red;

On hazel boughs the clusters hang embrown'd

And with the sportman's war the new shorn fields resound.”

"There are accompaniments in an autumnal woodland walk that call for our notice and admiration. The peculiar feeling in the air, a silence in which we hear everything, a beauty that will be observed. . . . Rambling with unfettered grace, the tendrils of the briony festoons with its brilliant berries, green, golden, red, the slender sprigs of the hazel, or the thorn; the squirrel, agile with life and timidity, gambolling round the root of an ancient beech, its base overgrown with the dewberry, blue with unsullied fruit, impeded in his frolic sports, half angry, darts up the silvery hole again, to peep and wonder at the strange intruder on his haunts. The jay springs up screaming, tells of danger to her brood, the noisy tribe repeat the call, are hushed, and leave us; the loud laugh of the woodpecker, joyous and vacant; the hammering of the nuthatch, the humble bee torpid on the disc of the purple thistle, just lifts a limb to pray forbearance of injury. The sere and yellow leaf." Journal of a Naturalist, 1830.

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