ng of his chirp and
find him in the tip of shadow, already numb. The black crickets
keep up their tune longest, singing from beneath sheltering stones
and bark or fallen leaves. With the direct sun vanish also other
summer pasture people who have made the warmth of the day
beautiful. Under an old apple tree the ground is yellow with the
apples that it has shed and here all through the sunny hours two
vanessa butterflies have alternately floated and feasted, one a
mourning cloak, the other a Compton tortoise, Vanessa antiopa and
Vanessa j-album. These are late arrivals that have come from the
cocoon upon a cold world and are doing their best to make good in
it. Both are of a species that are hardy beyond belief and both
may well winter in the crevice within the gnarled trunk of the old
tree into which they creep benumbed when the chill of night begins
to fall. The pasture at midday was bright with the yellow of
colias butterflies which dashed madly about from one fall
dandelion bloom to another, eager to eat enough while the warmth
should linger. I saw many of the American copper with them, these
with a more conspicuous white margin to the tiny wings than I have
ever seen before, a fall form I fancy rather than anything
permanently new in this rather variable insect.

All these the first chill of nightfall sends to crevices and with
them go the black wasps which have been feeding desperately in the
sun on goldenrod and aster. The hornets are dead. Not one was
about even in the middle of the day fly hunting though house flies
are still plentiful. The hornets seem to be almost the first
insects to succumb to the cold. The black wasps are far hardier.
With their passing goes that tiny shrill uproar of the pasture and
in the amber quiet of sunset the place becomes a vast whispering
gallery. Tiny sounds seem to be entangled here and made audible
from very far. The quack of incoming ducks a mile away across the
pond sounds as if on the nearer shore. The laughter of children
comes as far, nor can you readily locate the direction. At such
times the mystical quality of the place deepens with the peace of
it. I notice then, as I did not notice in midday, the fairy rings
in the grass on the little rise of ground and am half-willing to
believe I stand by a fairy rath and call the childish shouts and
laughter that seem to rise from it the glee of fairies over the
coming of night. After dark any one of these fairy rings now
growing