so frequent, and the butternuts in this immediate neighborhood are rare; in some parts of the county they abound. Beech-nuts are plenty. Hazel-nuts are rare, and our hickory-nuts are not as good as “Thiskytoms” should be. Still, all things with kernels are “nuts” to boys, and the young rogues make furious attacks upon all the chestnut, walnut, and hickory trees in the neighborhood; they have already stripped the walnut-trees about the village of all their leaves; these are disposed to fall early, but the boys beat the branches so unmercifully that they become quite bare as soon as the fruit is ripe.
A large party of pretty little wrens were feeding on the haws of an old thorn-tree by the road-side. Perhaps they were winter wrens, which are found in this State, and remain here through the year. We do not remember, however, to have ever seen a wren in this county, during our coldest months.
Thursday, 5th.—The woods are very fine, under the cloudy sky, to-day. Scarlet, crimson, pink, and dark red increasing rapidly—gaining upon the yellows. So much the better; seasons where yellow prevails are far from being our finest autumns. The more crimson and scarlet we have to blend with the orange and straw colors, the gayer we are. Still, this seems rather a yellow year; for the elms and hickories—which often wither and turn brown, without much beauty—are very handsome just now, in clear shades of yellow, fluttering in the breeze like gold-leaf; while the chestnuts, birches, wych-hazel, and many maples, as usual, wear the same colors. Although there are certain general rules regarding the coloring of the trees, still they vary with different seasons; some which were red last year may be yellow
