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Page 8
* * * * *
THE MONTHS
[Illustration: OCTOBER.]
On the woods are hung
With many tints, the fading livery
Of life, in which it mourns the coming storms
Of winter.
PERCIVAL.
Change is the characteristic of the month of October; in short, it
includes the birth and death--the Alpha and Omega--of Nature. Hence, it
is the most inviting to the contemplatist, and during a day in October,
the genius of melancholy may walk out and take her fill, in meditating
on its successive scenes of regeneration and decay.
Dissemination, or the _sowing of seed_, is the principal business
of this month in the economy of nature; which alone is an invaluable
lesson, a "precept upon precept" to a cultivated mind. This is variously
effected, besides by the agency of man; and it is a satire on his
self-sufficiency which should teach him that Nature worketh out her way
by means that he knoweth not.
Planting, that agreeable and patriotic art, is another of the October
labours. Here, however, the pride of man is again baffled, when he
considers how many thousand trees are annually planted by _birds_,
to whom he evinces his gratitude by destroying them, or cruelly
imprisoning them for the idle gratification of listening to their
warbling, which he may enjoy in all its native melody amidst the
delightful retreats of woods and groves. This leads us to the October
economy of birds. "Swallows are generally seen for the last time this
month, the house-martin the latest. The rooks return to the roost trees,
and the tortoise begins to bury himself for the winter. Woodcocks begin
to arrive, and keep dropping in from the Baltic singly or in pairs till
December. The snipe also comes now;" and with the month, by a kind of
savage charter, commences the destruction of the pheasant, to swell the
catalogue of the created wants and luxuries of the table. "One of the
most curious natural appearances," says Mr. L. Hunt, "is the
_gossamer_, which is an infinite multitude of little threads shot
out by minute spiders, who are thus wafted by the wind from place to
place." In this manner spiders are known to cross extents of many miles.
The weather becomes misty, though the middle of the day is often very
fine. Hence it is the proper season for the enjoyment of forest scenery.
The leaves, which, towards the close of September, began to assume their
golden tints and gorgeous hues, now lecture us with their scenes of
falling grandeur; and nothing is more delightful than in an autumnal
walk to emerge from the pensive gloom of a thick forest, and just catch
the last glimpse of an October sun, shedding his broad glare over the
varied tints of its leaves and branches, for the sombre and silvery
barks of the latter add not a little to the picture. "The hedges," says
the author already quoted, "are now sparkling with their abundant
berries,--the wild rose with the hip, the hawthorn with the haw, the
blackthorn with the sloe, the bramble with the blackberry; and the
briony, privet, honey-suckle, elder, holly, and woody nightshade, with
their other winter feasts for the birds."
October is the great month for _brewing_--that luxurious and
substantial branch of rural economy; and many and merry are the songs
and stories of nut-brown October to "gladden the heart of man," with the
soul-stirring influence of its regalings. Hops, too, are generally
picked this month.
October in Italy is thus vividly described: "It was now the beginning of
the month of October; already the gales which attend upon the equinox
swept through the woods and trees; the delicate chestnut woods, which
last dare encounter the blasts of spring, and whose tender leaves do not
expand until they may become a shelter to the swallow, had already
changed their hues, and shone yellow and red, amidst the sea-green
foliage of the olives, the darker but light boughs of the cork-trees,
and the deep and heavy masses of ilexes and pines."
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