gardens in flocks,, feasting upon the ripe seeds; at this moment, they have a little chatty note, which is very pleasant, though scarcely musical; but as they all seem to be talking at once, they make a cheerful murmur about the thickets and fields.
Monday, 4th.—Many of the maple leaves are now covered with brilliant crimson patches, which are quite ornamental; these are not the autumnal change in the color of the leaf itself, for that has not yet commenced, but little raised patches of crimson, which are quite common upon the foliage of our maples in August and September. Many persons suppose these to be the eggs of some insect; but they are, I believe, a tiny parasitic vegetable, of the fungus tribe, like that frequently seen on the barberry, which is of a bright orange color. The insects who lay their eggs in leaves, pierce the cuticle of the leaf, which distends and swells over the young insect within; but the tiny parasitic plants alluded to are not covered by the substance of the leaf, they rise above it, and are quite distinct from it. Those on the maple are the most brilliant of any in our woods.
The leaves of the wych-hazel are frequently covered with large conical excrescences, which are doubtless the cradle of some insect; over these, the cuticle of the leaf itself rises, until it grows to a sharp-pointed extremity. Some leaves show a dozen of these excrescences, and few bushes of the wych-hazel are entirely free from them. Occasionally, one finds a good-sized shrub where almost every leaf has been turned to account in this way, the whole foliage bristling with them. Indeed, there is no other tree or bush in our woods so much resorted to by insects for this purpose as the wych-hazel; all the excrescences bear the same form, so that they probably belong to the same insect, which must be
