ANNIE W. BRIGMAN.

OCTOBER 1.

THE PASSING OF SUMMER.

  She smiled to the hearts that enshrined her,
    Then the gold of her banner unfurled
  And trailing her glories behind her
    Passed over the rim of the world.

HARLEY R. WILEY,
in New England Magazine, October, 1906.

The California condor, the largest of all flying birds, is found only on this coast and only in the southern half of that, although an occasional specimen has been seen in the high Sierra Neveda.  Of all the sailing or soaring birds he is the most graceful and wonderful, drifting to and fro, up and down, right or left, in straight lines or curves, for hours at a time, darting like an arrow or hanging still in air with equal ease on that motionless wing whose power puzzles all philosophy.

T.S.  VANDYKE.

OCTOBER 2.

Wild fowl, quacking hordes of them, nest in the tulares.  Any day’s venture will raise from open shallows the great blue heron on his hollow wings.  Chill evenings the mallard drakes cry continually from the glassy pools, the bittern’s hollow boom rolls along the water paths.  Strange and far-flown fowl drop down against the saffron, autumn sky.  All day wings beat above it with lazy speed; long flights of cranes glimmer in the twilight.  By night one wakes to hear the clanging geese go over.  One wishes for, but gets no nearer speech from those the ready fens have swallowed up.  What they do there, how fare, what find, is the secret of the tulares.

MARY AUSTIN,
in The Land of Little Rain.

OCTOBER 3.

MOCKING BIRD.

  Warble, whistle and ripple! wake! whip up! ha! ha! 
  Burgle, bubble and frolic—­a roundelay far! 
  Pearls on pearls break and roll like bright drops from a bowl! 
  And they thrill, as they spill in a rill, o’er my soul: 
      Then thou laughest so light
      From thy rapturous height! 
  Earth and Heaven are combined, in thy full dulcet tone;
  North and south pour the nectar thy throat blends in one! 
  Flute and flageolet, bugle, light zither, guitar! 
  Diamond, topaz and ruby!  Sun, moon, silver star! 
      Ripe cherries in wine! 
      Orange blossoms divine! 
  Genius of Songsters! so matchless in witchery! 
  Nature hath fashioned thee out of her mystery!

JOHN WARD STIMSON,
in Wandering Chords.

OCTOBER 4.

THE MOCKING BIRD.

Can anything be more ecstatic than the mockingbird’s manner as he pours out his soul in song, flirting that expressive tail—­that seems hung on wires, jerking those emphatic wings, which say so much, turning his dainty head this way and that, and now and then flinging himself upon the air—­light as a feather—­in pure delight, and floating down to place again without dropping a note.  It is a poem in action to see him, so lithe, so graceful in every movement.