I never sit by the clustered dead leaves and listen to their faint rustling as the wind moves among them but I fancy they are whispering of the days gone by. What of the vanished springtide, when they first timidly looked forth? They greeted the returning birds, the whole merry host of north-bound warblers, and what startling facts of the bird-world they might reveal! There is no eye-witness equal to the leaf, and with them lives and dies many a secret that even the most patient ornithologist can never gain. How much they overhear of what the birds are saying! to how much entrancing music they listen that falls not upon men’s ears! What a view of the busy world above us has the fluttering leaf that crowns the tall tree’s topmost twig! Whether in storm or sunshine, veiled in clouds or beneath a starlit sky, whatsoever happens, there is the on-looking leaf, a naturalist worth knowing could we but learn its language. A word here as to the individuality of living leaves. Few persons are so blind as to have never noticed how leaves differ. Of every size and shape and density, they have varied experiences, if not different functions, and their effect upon the rambler in his wanderings is by no means always the same. At high noon, when the midsummer sun strives to parch the world, let the rambler stand first beneath an old oak and then pass to the quivering aspen, or pause in the shade of a way-side locust and then tarry beneath the cedar, at whose roots the sunshine never comes. It needs but to do this to realize that there are leaves and leaves: those that truly shelter and those that tease you by their fitfulness. It is winter now and the leaves are dead; but, although blighted, they have not lost their beauty. Heaped in the by-paths of this ancient wood, they are closely associated with the pranks of many birds, and for this alone should be lovingly regarded. Even now I hear an overstaying chewink—for this is a warm wood the winter long—tossing them in little clouds about him as he searches for the abundant insects that vainly seek shelter where they have fallen. The birds seem to seek fun as well as food among the leaves. I have often watched them literally dive from the overhanging bushes into a heap of leaves, and then with a flirt of the wings send dozens flying into the air. It is hard to imagine any other purpose than pure sport. When, as often happens, two or three follow their leader, I always think of a string of boys diving or playing leap-frog. “Coincidence,” cries old Prosy, with a wise shake of his head. Perhaps; but I think old Prosy is a fool.