bird, and in obtaining it myriads of these
winged creatures are scattered to the breeze. Each one is fraught with
a seed which it exists to sow, but its wild careering and soaring does
not fairly begin till its burden is dropped, and its spheral form is
complete. The seeds of many plants and trees are disseminated through
the agency of birds; but the thistle furnishes its own birds,--flocks
of them, with wings more ethereal and tireless than were ever given to
mortal creature. From the pains Nature thus takes to sow the thistle
broadcast over the land, it might be expected to be one of the most
troublesome and abundant of weeds. But such is not the case; the more
pernicious and baffling weeds, like snapdragon or blind nettles, being
more local and restricted in their habits, and unable to fly at all.

[Illustration: AMONG THE ROCKS]

In the fall the battles of the spring are fought over again, beginning
at the other or little end of the series. There is the same advance
and retreat, with many feints and alarms, between the contending
forces, that was witnessed in April and May. The spring comes like a
tide running against a strong wind; it is ever beaten back, but ever
gaining ground, with now and then a mad "push upon the land" as if to
overcome its antagonist at one blow. The cold from the north
encroaches upon us in about the same fashion. In September or early in
October it usually makes a big stride forward and blackens all the
more delicate plants, and hastens the "mortal ripening" of the
foliage of the trees, but it is presently beaten back again, and the
genial warmth repossesses the land. Before long, however, the cold
returns to the charge with augmented forces and gains much ground.

The course of the seasons never does run smooth, owing to the unequal
distribution of land and water, mountain, wood, and plain.

An equilibrium, however, is usually reached in our climate in October,
sometimes the most marked in November, forming the delicious Indian
summer; a truce is declared, and both forces, heat and cold, meet and
mingle in friendly converse on the field. In the earlier season, this
poise of the temperature, this slack-water in nature, comes in May and
June; but the October calm is most marked. Day after day, and
sometimes week after week, you cannot tell which way the current is
setting. Indeed, there is no current, but the season seems to drift a
little this way or a little that, just as the breez