One longs for the days of the old biota, when the great beasts at this season were in heat and bellowing, the Indians were celebrating their harvests, the turkeys were fat and the wild pigeons going over, obese with the mast crop. October 26, 1935. A phoebe is calling. Grackles go spattering through the trees, just as ready to leave now as they pretended to be in the last of August. The introduced trees are still holding their leaves, but most of the natives are naked except oaks of the subgenus Lepidobalanus, some of which are still brilliant.
Elms are most irregular, some holding astonishingly.
December 12, 1935. The transition to winter is I suppose complete, but there was gentleness in this day. In the northwest hung a trailing sheet of storm, and the prairie prospect in that direction was hazed with a black ground mist. The white-topped cottonwoods against it looked pale and awed, but lofty. They also call with a tiny lisping t'seep.