Other hens picking up the ears of Indian
corn. Grasshoppers, flies, and flying insects of all sorts are more
abundant in these warm autumnal days than I have seen them at any other
time. Yellow butterflies flutter about in the sunshine, singly, by
pairs, or more, and are wafted on the gentle gales. The crickets begin
to sing early in the afternoon, and sometimes a locust may be heard. In
some warm spots, a pleasant buzz of many insects.
Crossed the fields near Brookhouse's villa, and came upon a long beach,--
at least a mile long, I should think,--terminated by craggy rocks at
either end, and backed by a high broken bank, the grassy summit of which,
year by year, is continually breaking away, and precipitated to the
bottom. At the foot of the bank, in some parts, is a vast number of
pebbles and paving-stones, rolled up thither by the sea long ago. The
beach is of a brown sand, with hardly any pebbles intermixed upon it.
When the tide is part way down, there is a margin of several yards from
the water's edge, along the whole mile length of the beach, which
glistens like a mirror, and reflects objects, and shines bright in the
sunshine, the sand being wet to that distance from the water.
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