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The Naturalist's Diary,

For October, 1830.

"I at my window sit, and see
Autumn his russet fingers lay
On every leaf of every tree;

I call, but Summer will not stay.

She flies-the boasting goddess flies—
And, pointing where the espaliers shoot,
'Deserve my parting gift,' she cries-
'I take the leaves, but not the fruit.'

Let me the parting gift improve,
And emulate the just reply,
As life's short seasons swift remove,
Ere fixed in Winter's frost I lie.

Health, beauty, vigour, now decline-
The pride of Summer's splendid day;
Leaves with the stem must now resign-
The mournful prelude of decay.

But let fair Virtue's fruit remain,

Though Summer with my leaves be fled;
Then, not despised, I'll not complain,
But cherish Autumn in her stead."

The month of October assumes the soberness of autumn. There is an eventide in the day, an hour when the sun retires, when the shadows fall, and when nature assumes the appearance of repose and silence.

AN AUTUMNAL EVE.

Sunk are the winds that late swept hill and shore,
The raging billows cease their wild loud dash,
Above no longer bursts the thunder-crash,
And the big rain descends to earth no more:
Clear is heaven's face, and sweetly in the west
The sun hangs o'er the hush'd hill's purple top;
The bird that sought its nest, with lively hop
Again pceps forth, and warbles him to rest;

The hawthorn blossoms scent the cool fresh air;
And general nature, ere day breathes his last,
Wears loveliest smiles in guerdon for the past.
Thus oft life's first hours, sorrow, ills, and care,
Wrap in dark gloom, then sudden flee away,
And leave all bright and blest our closing day.

Literary Gazette.

A modern writer says:-" The great business of nature, during this month, seems to be the depositing of seeds in the earth; this done, the plant either perishes down to the root, or, if it be a shrub, casts its leaves. To the perfecting of its seeds, and preservation of them from the inconstancy of the elements or the destruction of inclement seasons, all the other parts of the flowers tend; and so wonderfully is this effected in an endless variety of expedients, that out of the many thonsand plants which cover the earth, not a single species, perhaps, has been lost since the creation. The care too, with which seeds when perfected are dispersed abroad, can never be enough admired. How beautiful the feathered arrowy seed of the thistle, and others of the syngenesia class, by which they are enabled to float in the air, and colonize themselves away from the parent plant, covering the earth with beauty-even ereating a soil where before there was none, and making flowers spring up in the barren waste! It is wonderful also how long many kinds of seeds by the help of their integuments, and perhaps of their oil, stand out against decay. A grain of mustard-seed has been known to lie in the earth for a hundred years, and as soon as it had acquired a favourable situation, to shoot as vigorously as if it had been just gathered from the plant."

About this period commences "the fall of the leaf," and the ground is strewed with dead and withering leaves.

The leaves are falling from the poplar trees;
And through their skeleton branches I behold
Glimpses of clear blue day-light. Thus, methinks,
As one by one the joys of life decay,
Withered or prematurely snapped, the eye
Of age contemplates, with a clearer ken,
The opening vault of immortality
O'er-arching earth and time.

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About this period the winter birds arrive. Dr. Forster, speaking of their migration at this season, :-" Woodcocks have now arrived. In the says:autumn and setting in of winter they keep dropping in from the Baltic singly, or in pairs, till December. They instinctively land in the night, or in the dark misty weather, for they are never seen to arrive, but are frequently discovered the next morning in any ditch which affords them shelter, after the extraordinary fatigue occasioned by the adverse gales which they often have to encounter in their æriel voyage. They do not remain near the shores longer than a day, when they are sufficiently recruited to proceed inland, and they visit the very same haunts which they left the preceding season. In temperate weather they retire to mossy moors, and high bleak mountainous parts; but as soon as the frost sets in, and the snows begin to fall, they seek lower and warmer situations, with boggy grounds and springs, and little oozing mossy rills, which are rarely frozen, where they shelter in close bushes of holly and furze, and the brakes of woody glens, or in dells which are covered with underwood here they remain concealed during the day, and remove to different haunts and feed only in the night. From the beginning of March to the end of that month, or sometimes to the middle of April, they all keep drawing towards the coast, and avail themselves of the first fair winds to return to their

native woods. The snipe, scolopax gallinago, also comes now, and inhabits similar situations. It is migratory, and met with in all countries: like the woodcock, it shuns the extremes of heat and cold, by keeping on the black moors in summer, and seeking the shelter of the valleys in winter. In unfrozen boggy places, runners from springs, or any open streamlets of water, they are often found in considerable numbers."

Swallows, martins, plovers, and other birds which arrived in the spring, assemble in vast numbers on the coast awaiting favourable weather, preparatory to their flight. It is generally believed that all swallows visiting this country land on the coast of Suffolk, particularly in the neighbourhood of Southwold. Gardner, in his Tour through Great Britain, speaking of Southwold says:-"I was in this place about the beginning of October, and lodging in a house that looked into the church-yard, I observed in the evening an unusual multitude of swallows, sitting on the leads of the church, and covering the tops of several houses round about. This led me to enquire what was the meaning of such a prodigious number of swallows sitting there. I was answered, that this was the season when the swallows, their food failing here, begin to leave us, and return to the country, wherever it be, from whence they came; and that this being the nearest land to the opposite coast, and the wind contrary, they were waiting for a gale, and might be said to be wind-bound. This was more evident to me, when in the morning I found the wind had come about to the north-west in the night, and there was not one swallow to be seen. This passing and repassing of swallows is observed no where so much as on this eastern coast, namely from above Harwich to Wintertonness in Norfolk. We know nothing of them any farther north; the passage of

the sea being, as I suppose, too broad from Flamborough Head, and the shore of Holderness in Yorkshire."

The herring fishery at this season is a great source of profit to the inhabitants of some parts of the coast. Mr. Shoberl in his description of Suffolk, says :-" The principal part of the commerce of Lowestoft is derived from the herring fishery. The season commences about the middle of September, and lasts till about the middle of November. The boats stand out to sea, to the distance of about thirteen leagues north-east of Lowestoft, in order to meet the shoals of herrings coming from the north. Having reached the fishing ground in the evening, the proper time for fishing, they shoot out their nets, extending about 2200 yards in length and eight in depth; which by means of small casks, called bowls, fastened on one side, are made to swim in a position perpendicular to the surface of the water. If the quantity of fish caught in one night amounts to no more than a few thousands, they are salted, and the vessels, if they meet with no better success, continue on the fishing ground two or three nights longer, salting the fish as they are caught. Sometimes when the quantity taken is very small, they will continue on the ground a week or more, but in general the fish are landed every two or three days, and sometimes oftener, when they are very successful. As soon as the herrings are brought on shore, they are carried to the fish-houses, where they are salted, and laid on the floors in heaps about two feet deep. After they have remained in this state about fifty hours they are put into baskets, and plunged into water to wash the salt from them. Wooden spits, about four feet long, are then run through the gills of as many of the fish as they will hold, and fixed at proper distances in the upper part of the house, as

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