The trees were mostly bare before the end of October, but the apple and cherry trees still kept their branches green (they are foreigners, and perhaps have been used to a longer season), and the younger growth of gray birches lighted up the woodlands with pale yellow. Of course the oak-leaves were still hanging, also; and for that matter they are hanging yet, and will be for months to come, let the north wind blow as it may. I wonder whether their winter rustling sounds as cold in other ears as in mine. My own feeling is most likely the result of boyish associations. How often I waded painfully through the forest paths, my feet and hands half frozen, while these ghosts of summer shivered sympathetically on every side as they saw me pass! I wonder, too, what can be the explanation of this unnatural oak-tree habit. The leaves are dead; why should they not obey the general law,--"ashes to ashes, dust to dust"? Is our summer too short to ripen them, and so to perfect the articulation? Whatever its cause, their singular behavior does much to beautify the landscape; particularly in such a district as mine, where the rocky hills are, so many of them, covered with young oak forests, which, especially for the first half of November, before the foliage is altogether faded, are dressed in subdued shades of maroon, beautiful at all hours, but touched into positive glory by the level rays of the afternoon sun. I began on the very first day of the month to make a list of the plants found in bloom, and happening, a week afterward, to be in the company of two experienced botanical collectors, I asked them how many species I was likely to find. One said thirty. The other, after a little hesitation, replied, "I don't know, but I shouldn't think you could find a dozen." Well, it is true that November is not distinctively a floral month in Massachusetts, but before its thirty days were over I had catalogued seventy-three species, though for six of these, to be sure, I have to thank one of the collectors just now mentioned. Indeed, I found thirty-nine sorts on my first afternoon ramble; and even as late as the 27th and 28th I counted twelve. All in all, there is little doubt that at least a hundred kinds of plants were in bloom about me during the month.