UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 A.M. Johnson

 
 THE BIRD 
 
 BY 
 
 JULES MICHELET, 
 
 WITH 210 ILLUSTRATIONS BY GIACOMELLI. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 T. NELSON AND SONS, 137 GRAND STREET 
 
 1869
 
 (*7 
 
 
 I dedicate to thee what is really thine own : three books 
 of the fireside, sprung from our siveet evening talk, 
 
 THE BIRD THE INSECT THE SEA. 
 
 Thou alone didst inspire them. Without thee I 
 should have pursued, ever in my own track, the rude path 
 of human history. 
 
 Thou alone didst prepare them. I received from 
 thy hands the rich harvest of Nature. 
 
 And thou alone didst crown them, placing on the 
 accomplished work the sacred floiver which blesses them. 
 
 J. MICHELET.
 
 'OISEAU," or "The Bird," was first published in 1856. It 
 has since been followed by "L'Insecte" and "La Mer;" the 
 three works forming a trilogy which few writers have sur- 
 passed in grace of style, beauty of description, and sug- 
 gestiveness of sentiment. " L'Oiseau" may be briefly described as an 
 eloquent defence of the Bird in its relation to man, and a poetical 
 exposition of the attractiveness of Natural History. It is animated 
 by a fine and tender spirit, and written with an inimitable charm of 
 language. 
 
 In submitting the following translation to the English public, I 
 am conscious of an urgent need that I should apologize for its short- 
 comings. It is no easy matter to do justice to Michelet in English ; 
 yet, if I have failed to convey a just idea of his beauties of expression, 
 jf I have suffered most of the undefinable aroma of his style to 
 escape, I believe I have rendered his meaning faithfully, without 
 exaggeration or diminution. I have endeavoured to preserve, as far 
 as possible, his more characteristic peculiarities, and even mannerisms, 
 carrying the literalness of my version to an extent which some critics, 
 perhaps, will be disposed to censure. But in copying the masterpiece
 
 viii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 of a great artist, what we ask of the copyist is, that he will 
 reproduce every effect of light and shade with the severest accuracy; 
 and, in the translation of a noble work from one language to another, 
 the public have a right to demand the same exact adherence to the 
 original. They want to see as much of the author as they can, and 
 as little as may be of the translator. 
 
 The present version is from the eighth edition of " L'Oiseau," and 
 is adorned with all the original Illustrations. 
 
 A. E 
 
 *=^_ -o^
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO THE STUDY OF NATURE, 
 
 Page 
 13 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 THE EGG, .. 
 
 THE POLE AQUATIC BIRDS, .. 
 
 THE WING, 
 
 THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS OF THE WING, 
 TRIUMPH OF THE WING THE FRIGATE BIRD, .. 
 THE SHORES DECAY OF CERTAIN SPECIES, 
 
 THE HERONRIES OF AMERICA WILSON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST, 
 THE COMBAT THE TROPICAL REGIONS, .. 
 PURIFICATION, 
 DEATH BIRDS OF PREY (THE RAPTORES), 
 
 63 
 71 
 81 
 
 91 
 101 
 111 
 
 in 
 
 131 
 
 143 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 THE LIGHT THE NIGHT, .. 
 STORM AND WINTER MIGRATIONS, 
 MIGRATIONS, Continued THE SWALLOW, .. 
 HARMONIES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE, .. 
 THE BIRD AS THE LABOURER OF MAN. .. 
 
 171 
 181 
 193 
 205 
 BU
 
 x CONTENTS. 
 
 LABOUR THE WOODPECKER, 
 
 THE SONG, 
 
 THE NEST ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS, .. 
 
 THE COMMUNITIES OF BIRDS ESSAYS AT A REPUBLIC, 
 
 EDUCATION, 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE ART AND THE INFINITE, .. 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE, Continued, 
 
 CONCLUSION, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, 
 
 Page 
 223 
 
 247 
 257
 
 iE STUDY OF NATURE
 
 THE BIRD. 
 
 tin guibor teas leb to % Stubu o 
 
 ^t my faithful friend, the Public, who has listened 
 to me for so long a period without disfavour, I 
 owe a confession of the peculiar circumstances 
 which, while not leading me altogether astray 
 from history, have induced me to devote myself 
 to the natural sciences. 
 
 The book which 1 now publish may be described as 
 the offspring of the domestic circle and the home fireside. It is from 
 our hours of rest, our afternoon conversations, our winter readings, 
 our summer gossips, that this book, if it be a book, has been 
 gradually evolved. 
 
 Two studious persons, naturally reunited after a day's toil, put 
 together their gleanings, and refreshed their hearts by this closing 
 evening feast. 
 
 Am I saying that we have had no other assistance ? To make
 
 14 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 such a statement would be unjust, ungrateful. The domesticated 
 swallows which lodged under our roof mingled in our conversation. 
 The homely robin, fluttering around me, interjected his tender notes, 
 and sometimes the nightingale suspended it by her solemn music. 
 
 The burden of the time, life, labour, the violent fluctuations of 
 our era, the dispersion of a world of intelligence in which we lived, 
 and to which nothing has succeeded, weighed heavily upon me. 
 The arduous toils of history found occasional relaxation in friendly 
 instruction. These pauses, however, are only periods of silence. 
 Where shall we seek repose or moral invigoration, if not of 
 nature ? 
 
 The mighty eighteenth century, which included a thousand years 
 of struggle, rested at its setting on the amiable and consoling, though 
 scientifically feeble book of Bernardin de St. Pierre.* It ended with 
 that pathetic speech of Ramond's : "So -many irreparable losses 
 lamented in the bosom of nature !" 
 
 We, whatever we had lost, asked of solitude something more than 
 tears, something more than the dittany -f- which softens wounded 
 hearts. We sought in it a panacea for continual progress, a draught 
 from Inexhaustible fountains, a new strength, and wings. 
 
 This work, whatever its character, possesses at least the distinction 
 of having entered upon life under the usual conditions of existence. 
 It results from the intimate communion of two souls; and is in all 
 
 * The book referred to was the ' Etudes de la Nature." Translator. 
 
 t Dittany was formerly much used as a cordial and sedative. Translator.
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 15 
 
 things itself uniform and harmonious because the offspring of two 
 different principles. 
 
 Of the two souls to which it owes its existence, one was the 
 more powerfully attracted to natural studies by the fact that, in a 
 certain sense, it had been born among them, and had ever preserved 
 their fragrance and sweet savour. The other was so much the more 
 strongly impelled towards them because it had always been separated 
 by circumstances, and detained in the rugged ways of human history. 
 
 History never releases its slave. He who has once drunk of its 
 sharp strong wine will drink thereof till his death. I could not wrench 
 myself from it even in days of suffering. When the sorrows of the 
 past blended with those of the present, and when on the ruins of our 
 fortunes I inscribed "ninety-three,'.' my health might fail, but not my 
 soul, my will. All day I applied myself to this last duty, and 
 pressed forward among the thorns. In the evening I listened at 
 first not without effort to the peaceful narrative of some naturalist 
 or traveller. I listened and I admired, unable as yet to console 
 myself, or to escape from my thoughts, but, at all events, keeping 
 them under control, and preventing any anxieties and any mental 
 storms from disturbing this innocent tranquillity. 
 
 Not that I was insensible to the sublime legends of those heroic men 
 whose labours and enterprise have so largely benefited humanity. The 
 great national patriots whose history I was relating were the neai-est of 
 kindred to these cosmopolitan patriots, these citizens of the world.
 
 16 
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 For myself, I had long hailed, with all my heart, the great French 
 Revolution which had occurred in the Natural Sciences the era of 
 Lamarck and of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire,* so fertile in method, the 
 mighty restorers of all science. With what happiness I traced their 
 features in their legitimate sons those ingenious children who have 
 inherited their intellect ! 
 
 At their head let me name the amiable and original author of the 
 " Monde des Oiseaux," f whom the world has long recognized as one 
 of the most solid, if not also the most amusing, of naturalists. I 
 shall refer to him more than once ; but I hasten, on the threshold of 
 my book, to pay this preliminary homage to a truly great observer, 
 who, in all that concerns his own observations, is as weighty, as 
 sjtecial, as Wilson or Audubon. 
 
 * Jean Baptiste de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, was born August 1, 1744; died 
 December 20, 1829. His chief work is his " History of Invertebrate Animals." Etienne 
 Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was born in 1772, and died in 1844. He expounds his theory of 
 natural history in the " Philosophic Anatomique," 2 vols., 1818-20. Translator. 
 
 t Alphonse Toussenel, an illustrious French litterateur, born in 1803. The first edition 
 of his " Le Monde des Oiseaux, Ornithologie Passionelle," was published in 1852. 
 Trantlatar.
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 17 
 
 He has wronged himself by saying that, in his noble work, " he 
 has only sought a pretext for a discourse on man." On the contrary, 
 numerous pages demonstrate that, apart from all analogy, he has loved 
 and studied the Bird for its own sake. And it is for this reason 
 that he has surrounded it with so many legends, with such vivid and 
 profound personifications. Each bird which Toussenel treats of is 
 now, and will for ever remain, a person. 
 
 Nevertheless, the book now before the reader starts from a point of 
 view which differs in all things from that of our illustrious master. 
 
 A point of view by no means contrary, yet symmetrically 
 opposed, to his. 
 
 For I, as much as possible, seeking only the bird in the bird, 
 avoid the human analogy. With the exception of two chapters, I 
 have written as if only the bird existed, as if man had never been. 
 
 Man ! we have already met with him sufficiently often in other 
 places. Here, on the contrary, we have sought an alibi from the human 
 world, from the profound solitude and desolation of ancient days. 
 
 Man could not have lived without the bird, which alone could 
 save him from the insect and the reptile ; but the bird had lived 
 without man. 
 
 Man or no man, the eagle had reigned on his Alpine throne. 
 The swallow would not the less have performed her yearly migration. 
 The frigate bird,* unseen by human eyes, had still hovered over the 
 
 * The frigate bird, or man-of-war bird (Trachypetes aquila). Translator. 
 
 2
 
 IS 
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 lonely ocean-waters. Without waiting for human listeners, and with 
 all the greater security, the nightingale had still chanted in the 
 forest his sublime hymn. And for whom ? For her whom he loves, 
 for his offspring, for the woodlands, and, finally, for himself, his most 
 fastidious auditor. 
 
 Another difference between this book and that of Toussenel's is, 
 that, harmonious as he is, and a disciple of the gentle Fourier, he is 
 not the less a sportsman. In every page the military calling of the 
 Lorraine is clearly visible. 
 
 My book, on the contrary, is a book of peace, written specifically 
 in hatred of sport. 
 
 Hunt the eagle and the lion, if you will ; but do not hunt the 
 weak. 
 
 The devout faith which we cherish at heart, and which we teach 
 in these pages, is, that man will peaceably subdue the whole earth, 
 when he shall gradually perceive that every adopted animal, accus- 
 tomed to a domesticated life, or at least to that degree of friendship 
 or neighbourliness of which its nature is capable, will be a hundred 
 times more useful to him than if he had simply cut its throat. 
 
 Man will not be truly man we return to this topic at the close 
 of our volume until he shall labour seriously to accomplish the 
 mission which the earth expects of him : 
 
 The pacification and harmonious communion of all living nature.
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 19 
 
 "A woman's dreams !" you exclaim. What matters that? 
 
 Since a woman's heart breathes in this book, I see no reason 
 to reject the reproach. We accept it as an eulogy. Patience and 
 gentleness, tenderness and pity, and maternal warmth these are the 
 things which beget, preserve, develop a living creation. 
 
 May this, in due time, become not a book, but a reality ! Then, 
 haply, it shall prove suggestive, and others derive from it their 
 inspiration. 
 
 The reader, au reste, will better understand the character of 
 the work, if he will take the trouble to read the few pages which 
 follow, and which I transcribe word for word. [The succeeding section, 
 as the reader will perceive, is written by Madame Michelet.]
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 " I was born in the country, where I have passed 
 two-thirds of my life-time. I feel myself constantly 
 recalled to it, both by the charm of early habits, by 
 natural sensibilities, and also, undoubtedly, by the dear 
 memories of my father, who bred me among its shades, 
 and was the object of my life's worship. 
 
 " Owing to my mother's illness, I was nursed for a 
 considerable period by some honest peasants, who loved 
 me as their own child. I was, in truth, their daughter; 
 and my brothers, struck by my rustic ways, called me 
 the Shepherdess. 
 
 " My father resided at no great distance from the 
 town, in a very pleasant mansion, which he had pur- 
 chased, built, and surrounded by plantations, in the 
 hope that the charms of the spot might console his 
 young wife for the sublime American nature she had 
 recently quitted. The house, well exposed on the east 
 and south, saw the morning sun rise on a vine-clad 
 slope, and turn, before its meridian heats, towards the
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 c 
 
 
 remote summits of the Pyrenees, which were visible 
 in clear weather. The young elm-trees of our own 
 France, mingled with American acacias, rose-laurels, and 
 young cypresses, interrupted its full flood of light, and 
 transmitted to us a softened radiance. 
 
 " On our right, a thicket of oaks, inclosed with a 
 dense hedge, sheltered us from the north, and from the 
 keen wind of the Cantal. Far away, on the left, swept 
 the green meadows and the corn-fields. Through the 
 broom, and in the shade of some tall trees, flowed a 
 brooklet a thin thread of limpid water, defined against 
 the evening horizon by a small belt of haze which ran 
 along its border. 
 
 " The climate is intermediate. In the valley, which 
 is that of the Tarn, and which shares the mildness of 
 the Garonne and the severity of Auvergne, we find 
 none of those southern products common everywhere 
 around Bordeaux. But the mulberry, and the melting 
 perfumed peach, the juicy grape, the sugared fig, and 
 the melon, growing in the open air, testify that we are 
 in the south. Fruits superabounded with us ; one 
 portion of the estate was an immense vineyard. 
 
 " Memory vividly recalls to me all the charms of 
 this locality, and its varied character. It was never 
 otherwise than grave and melancholy in itself, and it 
 impressed these feelings on all about it. My father, 
 though lively and agreeable, was a man already aged, 
 and of uncertain health. My mother, young, beautiful, 
 austere, had the queenly bearing of the North American, 
 with a prudence and an active economy very rare in 
 Creoles. The estate which we occupied formerly belonged 

 
 2-2 
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 f 
 I 
 
 to a Protestant family, and after passing through 
 many hands before it fell into ours, still retained the 
 graves of its ancient owners simple hillocks of turf, 
 where the proscribed had enshrined their dead under a 
 thick grove of oaks. I need hardly say, that these trees 
 and these tombs, consecrated by their very oblivion, 
 were religiously respected by my father. Each grave 
 was marked out by rose-bushes, which his own hands 
 had planted. These sweet odours, these bright blossoms, 
 concealed the gloom of death, while suffering, neverthe- 
 less, something of its melancholy to remain. Thither, 
 then, we were drawn, and as it were in spite of our- 
 selves, at evening time. Overcome by emotion, we 
 often mourned over the departed ; and, at each falling 
 star, exclaimed, ' It is a soul which passes ! ' * 
 
 " In this living country-side, among alternate joys 
 and pains, I lived for ten years from four to fourteen. 
 I had no comrades. My sister, five years older than 
 myself, was the companion of my mother when I was 
 still but a little girl. My brothers, numerous enough 
 to play among themselves without my help, often left 
 me all alone in the hours of recreation. If they ran off 
 to the fields, I could only follow them with my eyes. 
 I passed, then, many solitary hours in wandering near 
 the house, and in the long garden alleys. Tbere I 
 acquired, in spite of a natural vivacity, habits of con- 
 
 * Alluding to a popular superstition, which Beranger has made the 
 subject of a fine lyric : 
 
 " What means tho fall of yonder star, 
 
 Which falls, falls, and fades away? 
 
 My son, whene'er a mortal dies, 
 
 Earthward his star drops instantly." Translator. 
 
 W 
 
 r 
 
 ii
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 I 
 
 BB , 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 I 
 
 f 
 
 rL 
 
 f,p| templation. At the bottom of my dreams 1 began to 
 Ijjj^ feel the Infinite : I had glimpses of God, of the paternal 
 divinity of nature, which regards with equal tenderness 
 the blade of grass and the star. In this I found the 
 chief source of consolation ; nay, more, let me say, of 
 happiness. 
 
 " Our abode would have offered to an observant mind 
 a veiy agreeable field of study. All creatures under its 
 benevolent protection seemed to find an asylum. We 
 had a fine fish-pond near the house, but no dove-cot ; 
 for my parents could not endure the idea of dooming 
 creatures to slavery whose life is all movement and 
 freedom. Dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea-pigs, lived together 
 in concord. The tame chickens, the pigeons, followed 
 my mother everywhere, and fed from her hand. The 
 sparrows built their nests among us ; the swallows 
 even brooded under our barns ; they flew into our very 
 chambers, and returned with each succeeding spring to 
 the shelter of our roof. 
 
 " How often, too, have I found, in the goldfinches' 
 nests torn from our cypress-trees by rude autumnal 
 winds, fragments of my summer-robes buried in the 
 sand ! Beloved birds, which I then sheltered all unwit- 
 tingly in a fold of my vestment, ye have to-day a surer 
 shelter in my heart, but ye know it not ! 
 
 " Our nightingales, less domesticated, wove their T , 
 nests in the lonely hedge-rows ; but, confident of a ^ 
 generous welcome, they came to our threshold a hundred 
 times a-day, and besought from my mother, for them- 
 selves and their family, the silk-worms which had 
 perished.
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 "In. the depths of the wood the woodpecker 
 laboured obstinately at the venerable trunks ; one might 
 hear him at his task when all other sounds had ceased. 
 We listened in trembling silence to the mysterious blows 
 of that indefatigable workman mingling with the owl's 
 slow and lamentable voice. 
 
 " It was my highest ambition to have a bird all to 
 myself a turtle-dove. Those of my mother's so 
 familiar, so plaintive, so tenderly resigned at breeding- 
 time attracted me strongly towards them. If a young 
 girl feels like a mother for the doll which she dresses, 
 how much more so for a living creature which responds 
 to her caresses ! I would have given everything for 
 this treasure. But it was not to be so ; and the dove 
 was not my first love. 
 
 " The first was a flower, whose name I do not 
 know. 
 
 " I had a small garden, situated under an enormous 
 fig-tree, whose humid shades rendered useless all my 
 cultivation. Feeling very sad and sorely discouraged, I 
 descried one morning, on a pale-green stem, a beautiful 
 little golden blossom. Very little, trembling at the 
 lightest breath, its feeble stalk issued from a small basin 
 excavated by the rains. Seeing it there, and always 
 trembling, I supposed it was cold, and provided it with 
 a canopy of leaves. How shall I express the transports 
 which this discovery awakened ? I alone knew of its 
 existence ; I alone possessed it. All day we could do 
 nothing but gaze at each other. In the evening I 
 glided to its side, my heart full of emotion. We spoke 
 little, for fear of betraying ourselves. But ah ! what 
 
 *
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 26 
 
 i 
 
 m 
 
 tender kisses before the last adieu ! These joys endured 
 but three days. One afternoon my flower folded itself 
 up slowly, never again to re-open. There was an end 
 to its love. 
 
 " I kept to myself my keen regret, as I had kept 
 my happiness. No other flower could have consoled 
 me ; a life more full of life was needed to restore the 
 freedom of my soul. 
 
 " Every year my good nurse came to see me, 
 invariably bringing some little present. On one occa- 
 sion, with a mysterious air, she said to me, ' Put thy 
 hand in my basket.' I did so, expecting to find some 
 fruit, but felt a silken fur, and something trembling. 
 Ah ! it is a rabbit ! Seizing it, I ran in all directions 
 to announce the news. I hugged the poor animal with 
 a convulsive joy, which nearly proved fatal to it. My 
 head was troubled with giddiness. I could not eat. 
 My sleep was disturbed by painful dreams. I saw my 
 rabbit dying ; I was unable to move a single step to 
 succour it. Oh ! how beautiful it was, my rabbit, with 
 its pink nose, and its fur as polished as a mirror ! Its 
 large pearled ears, which were constantly in motion, its 
 fantastic gambols, had, I confess, a share of my admira- 
 tion. As soon as the morning dawned, I escaped from 
 my mother's bed to visit my favourite, and carry it a 
 green leaf or two. There it sat, and gravely ate the 
 leaves, casting upon me protracted glances, which I 
 thought full of affection ; then, erecting itself on its 
 hind paws, it turned to the sun its little snow-white 
 belly, and sleeked its fine whiskers with marvellous 
 dexterity. 
 
 I
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 % 
 
 " Nevertheless, slander was busy in its detraction ; 
 its face was too small, said its enemies, and it was very 
 gluttonous. To-day, I might subscribe to these asser- 
 tions; but at seven years of age I fought for the honour 
 of my rabbit ! Alas ! there was no need to make it the 
 subject of dispute, it lived so short a time. One Sunday, 
 my mother having set out for the town with my sister 
 and eldest brother, we were wandering we, the little 
 ones in the enclosure, when a sudden report broke 
 over our heads. A strange cry, like an infant's first 
 moan, followed it close at hand. My rabbit had been 
 wounded by a flash of fire. The unfortunate beast had 
 transgressed beyond the vineyard-hedge, and a neigh- 
 bour, having nothing better to do, had amused himself 
 with shooting at it. 
 
 " I was in time to see it rise up, bleeding. So 
 great was my grief that I almost choked, utterly unable 
 to sob out a single word. But for my father, who 
 received me in his arms, and by gentle words gave my 
 full heart relief, I should have fainted. My limbs 
 yielded under me. Pardon the tears which this recollec- 
 tion still calls forth. 
 
 " For the first time, and in early youth, I had a 
 revelation of death, abandonment, desolation. The 
 house, the garden, appeared to me empty and bare. 
 Do not laugh : my grief was bitter, and all the deeper 
 because concentrated in myself. 
 
 " Thenceforth, having learned the meaning of death, 
 I began to watch my father with wistful eyes. I 
 saw, not without terror, that his face was very pale 
 and his hair white. He would quit us ; he would go
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 'whither the village -bell summoned him,' to use his 
 oft-repeated phrase. I had not the strength to conceal 
 my thoughts. Sometimes I flung my arms around his 
 neck, exclaiming : ' Papa, do not die ! oh, never die ! ' 
 He embraced me, without replying ; but his fine large 
 black eyes were troubled as they gazed on me. 
 
 " I was attached to him by a thousand ties, by a 
 thousand intimate relations. I was the daughter of 
 his mature age, of his shattered health, of his affections. 
 I had not that happy equilibrium which his other chil- 
 dren derived from my mother. My father was trans- 
 mitted in me (passd en moi). He said so himself: 
 ' How I feel that thou art my daughter ! ' 
 
 " Years and life's trials had deprived him of nothing ; 
 to his last hour he retained the vivacity, the aspira- 
 tions, and even the charm of youth. Every one felt 
 it without being able to account for it, and all flocked 
 around him of their own accord women, children, men. 
 I still see him in his little study, seated before his 
 small black table, relating his Odyssey, his long jour- 
 neys in America, his life in the colonies ; one never 
 grew weary of his stories. A maiden of twenty years, 
 in the last stage of a pulmonary disease, heard him 
 shortly before her end : she would fain have listened 
 to him always ; implored him to visit her, for while he 
 was discoursing she forgot her sufferings and her decay, 
 even the approach of death. 
 
 " This charm I speak of was not that of a clever 
 talker only ; it was due to the great goodness so 
 plainly visible in him. The trials, the life of ad- 
 venture and misfortune, which harden so many hearts,
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 had, on the contrary, but softened his. No man in 
 this generation a generation so much agitated, tossed 
 to and fro by so many waves had undergone such 
 painful experiences. His father, an Auvergnat, the 
 principal of a college, then jiige consulaire in our 
 most southern city, and finally summoned to the 
 Assembly of Notables in '88, had all the hard austerity 
 of his country and his functions, of the school and the 
 tribunals. The education of that era was cruel, a per- 
 petual chastisement ; the more wit, the more character, 
 the more strength, the more did this education tend to 
 shatter them, to break them down. My father, of a 
 delicate and tender nature, could never have survived 
 it, and only escaped by flying to America, where one 
 of his brothers had previously established himself. A 
 change of linen was his only fortune, except his youth, 
 his confidence, his golden dreams of freedom. Thence- 
 forth he always cherished a peculiar tenderness for that 
 land of liberty ; he often revisited it, and earnestly 
 wished to die there. 
 
 " Called by the needs of business to St. Domingo, he 
 */> was present in that island at the great crisis of the reign 
 of Toussaint L'Ouverture. This truly extraordinary 
 man, who up to his fiftieth year had been a slave, who * 
 comprehended and foresaw everything, did not know ' 
 how to write, or to give expression to his ideas. His 
 genius succeeded better in great actions than in fine 
 speeches. He lacked a hand, a pen, and more the p 
 young bold heart which shall teach the hero the heroic 
 language, the words in harmony with the moment and 
 the situation. Toussaint, at his age, could only utter
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 ^^ Tf '$J$$- " >f ^ rp^^ ^ 
 
 this noble appeal : ' The First of the Blacks to the 
 First of the Whites ! ' * Permit me to doubt if it were 
 his. At least, if he conceived it, it was my father 
 who gave expression to the idea. 
 
 " He loved my father warmly ; he perceived his 
 frankness, and he trusted him he, so profoundly mis- 
 trustful, dumb with his long slavery, and secret as the 
 tomb ! But who can die without having one day un- 
 locked his heart ? It was my father's misfortune that 
 at certain moments Toussaint broke his silence, and 
 made him the confidant of dangerous mysteries. 
 Thenceforth, all was over ; he became afraid of the 
 young man, and felt himself dependent upon him a 
 new servitude, which could only end with my father's 
 death. Toussaint threw him into prison, and then, 
 with a fresh access of fear, would have sacrificed him. 
 Fortunately, the prisoner was guarded by gratitude ; 
 he had been bountiful to many of the blacks ; a negress 
 whom he had protected, warned him of his peril, and 
 assisted him to escape from it. All his life long he 
 sought that woman, to show his gratitude towards her ; 
 he did not discover her until some fourteen years after- 
 wards, on his last voyage ; she was then living in the 
 United States. 
 
 "To return: though out of prison, he was not saved. 
 Wandering astray in the forest, at night, without a 
 guide, he had cause to dread the Maroons, those im- 
 placable enemies of the whites, who would have killed 
 him, in ignorance that they were murdering the best 
 
 * It was with this exordium Toussaint commenced his appeal to 
 Napoleon Bonaparte.
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 friend of their race. Fortune is the boon of youth; 
 he escaped every danger. Having discovered a good 
 horse, whenever the blacks issued from their hiding- 
 places, one touch of the spear, a wave of the hat, a 
 cry : ' Advanced guard of General Toussaint ! ' and this 
 was enough. At that formidable name all took to 
 flight, and disappeared as if by enchantment. 
 
 " Such was the tenderness of my father's soul, that 
 he did not withdraw his regard from the great man 
 who had misunderstood him. When, at a later period, 
 he saw him in France, abandoned by everybody, a 
 wretched prisoner in a, fort of the Jura, where he 
 perished of cold and misery,* he alone was faithful to 
 him. Despite his errors, despite the deeds of violence 
 inseparable from the grand and terrible part which that 
 man had played, he revered in him the daring pioneer 
 of a race, the creator of a world. He corresponded 
 with him until his death, and afterwards with his 
 family. 
 
 "A singular chance ordained that my father should 
 be engaged in the isle of Elba when the First of the 
 Whites, dethroned in his turn, arrived to take posses- 
 sion of his miniature kingdom. Heart and imagina- 
 tion, my father fell captive to this wonderful romance. 
 An American, and imbued with Republican ideas, he 
 became on this occasion, and for the second time, the 
 courtier of misfortune. He was the most intimate of 
 
 * Napoleon's treatment of Toussaint L'Ouverture is one of the 
 darkest spots on his fame. He flung this son of the Tropics into a 
 dungeon among the icy fastnesses of the Alps, where he died, slain by 
 cold and undeserved ill-treatment, on the 27th of April 1803. Translator.
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 31 
 
 9 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 the servants of the Emperor, of his children, of that 
 accomplished and adored lady who was the charm and 
 happiness of his exile. He undertook to convey her 
 back to France in the perilous return of March 1815. 
 This attraction, had there been no obstacle, would have 
 led him even to St. Helena. As it was, he could not 
 endure the restoration of the Bourbons, and returned to 
 his beloved America. 
 
 " The New World was not ungrateful, and made the 
 happiness of his life. He had resigned every official 
 capacity in order to abandon himself wholly to the more 
 independent career of tuition. He taught in Louisiana. 
 That colonial France, isolated, sundered by the events 
 of her mother-land's history, and mingling so many 
 diverse elements of population, breathes ever the breath 
 of France. Among my father's pupils was an orphan, 
 of English and German extraction. She came to him 
 when very young, to learn the first elements of know- 
 ledge ; she grew under his hands, and loved him more 
 and more ; she found a second family, a second father ; 
 she sympathized with the paternal heart, with a charm 
 of youthful vivacity which our French of the south 
 preserve in their mature age. She had but three 
 faults : wealth, beauty, extreme youth for she was at 
 least thirty years younger than my father ; but neither 
 of them perceived it, and they never reminded them- 
 selves of it. My mother has been inconsolable for my 
 father's death, and has ever since worn mourning. 
 
 " My mother longed to see France, and my father, 
 in his pride of her, was delighted to show to the Old 
 World the brilliant flower he had gathered in the New. 
 
 ffi
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 1 
 I 
 
 f 
 
 But anxious as he was to maintain this young Creole 
 lady in the position and with the fortune which she 
 had always enjoyed, he would not embark until he 
 had accomplished, with her consent, a religious and 
 holy act. This was the manumission of his slaves of 
 those, at least, above the age of twenty -one ; the 
 young, whom he was prevented by the American law 
 from setting free, received from him their future 
 liberty, and, on attaining their majority, were to rejoin 
 their parents. He never lost sight of them. They 
 were always before his eyes ; he knew their names, 
 their ages, and their appointed hour of liberty. In 
 his French home, he took note of these epochs, and 
 would say, with a glow of happiness, ' To-day, such 
 an one becomes free ! ' 
 
 " See my father now in his native country, happy 
 in a residence near his birth-place building, planting, 
 bringing up his family, the centre of a young world in 
 which everything sprung from him : the house, the 
 garden, were his creation ; even his wife, whom he had 
 reared and trained, and whom everybody thought to 
 be his daughter. My mother was so young that her 
 eldest daughter seemed to be her sister. Five other 
 children followed, almost in as many successive years, 
 promptly enwreathing my father with a living garland, 
 which was his special pride. Few families exhibited a 
 greater variety of tastes and temperaments; the two worlds 
 were distinctly represented in ours : the French of the 
 south with the sparkling vivacity of Languedoc the grave 
 colonists of Louisiana marked from their birth with the 
 phlegmatic idiosyncrasies of the American character. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 ll
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 " It was ordered, however, that, with the exception 
 of the eldest, who was already my mother's companion 
 and shared with her the management of the household, 
 the five youngest should receive their education in 
 common from one master my father. Notwithstand- 
 ing his age, he undertook the duties of preceptor and 
 schoolmaster. He gave up to us his whole day, from 
 six in the morning until six in the evening. He 
 reserved for his correspondence, his favourite studies, 
 only the first hours of morning, or, more truly speak- 
 ing, the last hours of night. Retiring to rest very 
 early, he rose every day at three o'clock, without 
 taking any heed of his pulmonary weakness. First of 
 all, he threw wide his door, and there, before the stars 
 or the dawn, according to the season, he blessed God ; 
 and God also blessed that venerable head, silvered by 
 the experiences of life, not by the passions of humanity. 
 In summer time, after his devotions, he took a short 
 walk in the garden, and watched the insects and the 
 plants awake. His knowledge of them was wonderful ; 
 and very often, after breakfast, taking me by the hand, 
 he would describe the nature of each flower, would 
 point out where each little animal that he had sur- 
 prised at dawn took refuge. One of these was a 
 snake, which the sight of my father did not in the 
 least disconcert ; each time that he seated himself near 
 its domicile, it never failed to put forth its head and peer 
 at him curiously. He alone knew that it was there, 
 and he told none but me of its retirement; it remained 
 a secret between us. 
 
 " In those morning-hours everything he met with 
 3
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 fr 
 
 4 
 
 became a fertile text for his religious effusions. With- 
 out formal phrases, and inspired by true feeling, he 
 spoke to me of the goodness of God, for whom there is 
 neither great nor small, but all are brothers in His eyes, 
 and all are equals. 
 
 " Associated with my brothers in their labours, I 
 also took a part in those of my mother and my sister. 
 When I put aside my grammar and arithmetic, it was 
 to take up the needle. 
 
 " Happily for me, our life, naturally blending 
 with that of the fields, was, whether we willed it or 
 not, frequently varied by charming incidents which 
 broke the chains of habit. Study has commenced ; we 
 apply ourselves with eagerness to our books ; but what 
 now ? See, a storm is coming ! the hay will be spoiled. 
 Quick, we must gather it in ! Everybody sets to 
 work ; the very children hasten thither ; study is 
 adjourned ; we toil courageously, and the day goes 
 by. It is a pity, for the rain does not fall ; the 
 storm has lingered on the Bordeaux side ; it will come 
 to-morrow. 
 
 "At harvest-time we frequently diverted ourselves 
 with gleaning. In those grand moments of fruition, 
 at once a labour and a festival, all sedentary applica- 
 tion is impossible ; one's thoughts are in the fields. 
 We were constantly escaping out-of-doors, with the 
 lark's swiftness ; we disappeared among the furrows 
 we little ones concealed by the tall corn, hidden among 
 the forest of ripe ears. 
 
 " It was well understood that during the vintage 
 there was no time to think of study : much needed
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE 
 
 
 
 labourers, we lived among the vines ; it was our right. 
 But before the grape ripened, we had numerous other 
 vintages, those of the fruit-trees cherries, apricots, 
 peaches. Even at a later period, the apples and the 
 pears imposed upon us new and severe labours, in 
 which it was a matter of conscience that our hands 
 should be employed. And thus, even in winter, these 
 necessities returned to act, to laugh, and to do nothing. 
 The last tasks, occurring in mid-November, were perhaps 
 the most "delightful ; alight mist then enfolded every- 
 thing ; I have seen nothing like it elsewhere ; it was a 
 dream, an enchantment. All objects were transfigured 
 under the wavy folds of the vast pearl-gray canopy 
 which, at the breath of the warm autumn, lovingly 
 alighted hither and thither, like a farewell kiss. 
 
 "The dignified hospitality of my mother, my father's 
 charm of manner and piquant conversation, drew upon 
 us also the unforeseen distractions of visitors from the 
 town, constraining suspensions of our studies, at which 
 we did not weep. But the great and unceasing visit 
 was from the poor, who well knew the house and the 
 hand inexhaustibly opened by charity. All partici- 
 pated in its benefits, even the very animals; and it 
 was a curious and diverting thing to see the dogs of 
 the neighbourhood, patiently, silently seated on their 
 hind legs, waiting until my father should raise his 
 eyes from his book: they felt assured that he would 
 not resist the mute eloquence of their prayer. My 
 mother, more reasonable, was inclined to drive away 
 these indiscreet guests who came at their own invitation. 
 My father felt that he was wrong, and yet he never
 
 86 
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 failed to throw them stealthily some fragments, which 
 sent them away satisfied. 
 
 " This they knew perfectly well. One day, a new 
 guest, lean, bristling, unprepossessing, something be- 
 tween a dog and a wolf, arrived; he was, in fact, a 
 half-breed of the two species, born in the forests of the 
 Gresigne. He was very ferocious, very irascible, and 
 bore much too close a resemblance to his wolfish 
 mother. But, besides this, he was intelligent, and 
 gifted with a very keen instinct. From the first he 
 gave himself wholly up to my father, and neither 
 words nor rough usage could induce him to quit his 
 side. For us he had but little love; and we repaid 
 him in kind, seizing every opportunity of playing him 
 a hundred tricks. He ground and gnashed his teeth, 
 though, out of regard for my father, he abstained 
 from devouring us. To the poor he was furious, im- 
 placable, very dangerous; which decided us on suffer- 
 ing him to be lost. But there was no such chance. 
 He always came back again. His new masters would 
 chain him to a post; chains and post, he carried them 
 all off, and brought them into our house. It was too 
 much for my father; he would never forsake him. 
 
 " But the cats enjoyed even more of his good graces 
 than the dogs. This was due to his early education, 
 to the cruel years spent at college; his brother and 
 himself, beaten and repulsed, between the harshness of 
 their home and the severities of their school, had found 
 a consolation in a couple of cats. This predilection 
 was transmitted to his family each of us, in childhood, 
 possessed our cat. The gathering at the fireside was 
 
 I 
 
 
 1
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 37 
 
 1 
 
 a beautiful spectacle; all the grimalkins, in furred 
 dignity, sitting majestically under the chairs of their 
 young masters. One alone was missing from the 
 circle a poor wretch, too ugly to figure among the 
 others ; he knew his unworthiness, and held himself 
 aloof, in a wild timidity which nothing was able to 
 conquer. As in every assembly (such is the piteous 
 malignity of our nature!) there must be a butt, a scape- 
 goat, who receives all the blows, he, in ours, rilled this 
 unthankful role. If there were no blows, at least there 
 were abundant mockeries : we named him Moquo. Weak, 
 and scantily provided with fur, he stood in more need 
 than the others of the genial hearth; but we children 
 filled him with fear: even his comrades, better clothed 
 in their warm ermine, appeared to esteem him but 
 lightly, and to look at him askant. Of course, there- 
 fore, my father turned to him, and fondled him; the 
 grateful animal lay down under that beloved hand, 
 and gained confidence. Wrapped up in his coat, and 
 revived by its warmth, he would frequently be brought, 
 unseen, to the fireside. We quickly caught sight of him; 
 and if he showed a hair, or the tip of an ear, our laughter 
 and our glances threatened him, in spite of my father. 
 I can still see that shadow gathering itself up melt- 
 ing, so to speak in its protector's bosom, closing its 
 eyes, annihilating itself, well content to see nothing. 
 
 "All that I have read of the Hindus, and their 
 tenderness for nature, reminds me of my father. He 
 was a Brahmin. More even than the Brahmins did 
 he love every living thing. He had lived in a time 
 of blood and war he had been an eye-witness of the 
 
 442924
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 most terrible slaughters of men that had ever disgraced 
 history; and it seemed as if that frightful lavishness of 
 the irrecoverable good, which is life, had given him a 
 respect for all life, an insurmountable aversion to all 
 destruction. 
 
 " This had in time arrived at such an extreme, that 
 he would have willingly lived upon vegetable food 'alone. 
 He would have no viands of blood; they excited his 
 horror. A morsel of chicken, or, more often, an egg 
 or two, served for his dinner. And frequently he 
 dined standing. 
 
 "Such a regimen, however, could not strengthen t 
 him. Nor did he economize his strength, expending it ^ 
 largely in lessons, in conversations, and in the habitual 
 overflow of a too benevolent heart, which lived in all 
 things, interested itself in all. Age came, and with 
 it anxieties : family anxieties ? no, but from jealous ( 
 neighbours or unfaithful debtors. The crisis of the 
 American banks dealt a severe blow to his fortune. 
 He came to the extreme resolution, in spite of his ill 
 health and his years, of once more visiting America, in 
 the belief that his^ personal activity and his industry 
 might re-establish affairs, and secure the fortune of 
 his wife and children. 
 
 "This departure was terrible. It was preceded for 
 me by another blow. I had quitted the mansion and the 
 country; I had entered a boarding-school in the town. 
 Cruel servitude, which deprived me of all that made 
 my life of air and respiration ! Everywhere, walls ! 
 I should have died, but for the frequent visits of my 
 mother, and the rarer visits of my father, to which I
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 looked forward with a delirious impatience that per- 
 haps love has never known. But now that my father 
 himself was leaving us heaven, earth, everything 
 seemed undone. With whatever hope of reunion he 
 might endeavour to cheer me, an internal voice, dis- 
 tinct and terrible, such as one hears in great trials, told 
 me that he would return no more. 
 
 " The house was sold, and the plantations laid out 
 by our hands, the trees which belonged to the family, 
 were abandoned. Our animals were plainly inconsolable 
 at my father's departure. The dog I forget for how 
 many successive days seated himself on the road which 
 he had taken at his departure, howled, and returned. 
 The most disinherited of all, the cat Moquo, no longer 
 confided in any person, though he still came to regard 
 with furtive glances the empty place. Then he took 
 his resolution, and fled to the woods, from which we 
 could never call him back; he resumed his early life, 
 miserable and savage. 
 
 "And I, too, I quitted the paternal roof, the hearth 
 of my young years, with a heart for ever wounded. 
 My mother, my sister, my brothers, the sweet friend- 
 ships of infancy, disappeared behind me. I entered 
 upon a life of trial and isolation. At Bayonne, how- 
 ever, where I first resided, the sea of Biarritz spoke to 
 me of my father; the waves which break on its shore, 
 from America to Europe, repeated the story of his death ; 
 the snow-white ocean birds seemed to say, ' We have 
 seen him.' 
 
 "What remained to me? My climate, my birth- 
 land, my language. But even these I lost. I was
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 compelled to go to the North, to an unknown tongue 
 and a hostile sky, where the earth for half a year 
 wears mourning weeds. During these long seasons of 
 frost, my failing health extinguishing imagination, I 
 could scarcely re-create for myself my ideal South. A 
 dog might have somewhat consoled me: in default, I 
 made two little friends, who resembled, I fancied, my 
 mother's turtle-doves. They knew me, loved me, 
 sported by my fireside; I gave to them the summer 
 which my heart had not. 
 
 "Seriously affected, I fell very ill, and thought I 
 should soon touch the other shore. However studious 
 and tender towards me might be the hospitality of the 
 stranger, it was needful I should return to France. 
 It was long before carefulness of affection, and a 
 marriage in which I found again a father's heart and 
 arms, could restore my health. I had seen death 
 from so near a view-point let us rather say, I had 
 entered so far upon it that nature herself, living 
 nature, that first love and rapture of my young years, 
 had for a long time little hold upon me, and she alone 
 had any. Nothing had supplied her place. History, 
 and the recital of the pathetic stirring human drama, 
 moved me but lightly; nothing seized firmly on my 
 mind but the unchangeable, God and Nature. 
 
 "Nature is immovable and yet mobile; that is her 
 eternal charm. Her unwearied activity, her ever- 
 shifting phantasmagoria, do not weary, do not disturb; 
 this harmonious motion bears in itself a profound 
 repose. 
 
 " I was recalled to her by the flowers by the cares
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 which they demand, and the species of maternity which 
 they solicit. My imperceptible garden of twelve trees 
 and three beds did not fail to remind me of the great 
 fertile vineyard where I was bom; and I found, too, 
 some degree of happiness, by the side of an ardent in- 
 tellect, which toiled athirst in the dreary ways and wastes 
 of human history, in cherishing for him these living 
 waters and the charm of a few flowers." 
 
 
 ^mt. - 
 
 Jss$lk3Is3&M 
 
 WW 
 ^.:>
 
 42 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 I resume. 
 
 See me now torn from the city by this loving inquietude, by 
 my fears for an invalid whom it was essential to restore to the 
 conditions of her early life and the free air of the country. I 
 quitted Paris, my city, which I had never left before; that city 
 which comprises the three worlds; that cradle of Art and Thought. 
 
 I returned there daily for my duties and occupations ; but I 
 hastened to get quit of it. Its noise, its distant hum, the ebb and 
 flow of abortive revolutions, impelled me to wander afar. It was 
 with much pleasure that, in the spring of 1852, I broke through all 
 the ties of old habits; I closed my library with a bitter joy, I put 
 under lock and key my books, the companions of my life, which 
 had assuredly thought to hold me bound for ever. I travelled so 
 long as earth supported me, and only halted at Nantes, close to the 
 sea, on a hill which overlooks the yellow streams of Brittany as they 
 flow onward to mingle, in the Loire, with the gray waters of La Vendee. 
 
 We established ourselves in a large country mansion, completely 
 isolated, in the midst of the constant rains with which our western 
 fields are inundated at this season. At such a distance from the 
 ocean, one does not feel its briny influence; the rains are tempests 
 of fresh water. The house, in the Louis Quinze style, had been 
 uninhabited for a considerable period, and at first sight seemed a 
 little gloomy. Situated on elevated ground, it was rendered not the 
 less sombre by thick hedges on the one side, on the other by tall 
 trees and by an untold number of unpruned cherry-trees. The 
 whole, on a greensward, which the uiidrained waters preserved, 
 even in summer, in a beautifully fresh condition. 
 
 I adore neglected gardens, and this one reminded me of the 
 great abandoned vineyards of the Italian villas; but it possessed, 
 what these villas lack, a charming medley of vegetables and 
 plants of a thousand different species all the herbs of the St. John, 
 and each herb tall and vigorous. The forest of cherry-trees, bending 
 under their burden of scarlet fruit, gave also the idea of inex- 
 haustible abundance.
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 4:; 
 
 It was not the sweet austerity (soave austero) of Italy; it was 
 a soft and overflowing profusion, under a warm, mild, and moist sky. 
 
 Nothing appeared in sight, though a large town was close at 
 hand, and a little river, the Erdre, wound under the hill, and from 
 
 thence dragged itself towards the Loire. But this vegetable pro- 
 digality, this virgin forest of fruit trees, completely shut in the view. 
 For a prospect, one must mount into a species of turret, whence the 
 landscape began to reveal itself in a certain grandeur, with its woods 
 and its meadows, its distant monuments, its towers. Even from this 
 observatory the view was still limited, the city only appearing im- 
 perfectly, and not allowing you to catch sight of its mighty river, 
 its islands, its stir of commerce and navigation. A few paces from 
 its great harbour, of whose existence there was no sign, one might 
 believe oneself in a desert, in the landes of Brittany, or the clearings 
 of La Vende'e. 
 
 Two things were of a lofty character, and detached them-
 
 -44 
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 selves from this sombre orchard. Penetrating the ancient hedges 
 and chestnut-alleys, you found yourself in a nook of barren argil- 
 laceous soil, where, among thyme-laurels and other strong, rude trees, 
 rose an enormous cedar, a veritable leafy -cathedral, of such stature 
 that a cypress already grown very tall was choked by it, and lost. 
 This cedar, bare and stripped below, was living and vigorous where 
 it received the light; its immense arms, at thirty feet from the 
 ground, clothed themselves with strange and pointed leaves; then 
 the canopy thickened; the trunk attained an elevation of eighty feet. 
 You saw, about three leagues distant, the fields opposite the banks 
 
 of the Sevre and the woods of La Vendee. Our home, low and 
 sheltered on the side of this giant, was not less distinguished by it
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 45 
 
 throughout an immense circuit, and perhaps owed to it its name, the 
 High Forest. 
 
 At the other end of the enclosure, from a deep sheet of water, 
 rose a small ascent, crowned with a garland of pines. These fine 
 trees, incessantly beaten by the sea-breezes, and shaken by the 
 adverse winds which follow the currents of the great river and its 
 two tributaries, groaned in the struggle, and day and night filled the 
 profound silence of the place with a melancholy harmony. At times, 
 you might have thought yourself by the sea; they so imitated the 
 noise of the waves, of the ebbing and flowing tide. 
 
 By degrees, as the season became a little drier, this sojourn ex- 
 hibited itself to me in its real character; serious, indeed, but more 
 varied than one would have supposed at the first glance, and beauti- 
 ful with a touching beauty which went home to the soul. Austere, 
 as became the gate of Brittany, it had all the luxuriant verdure of 
 the Vendean coast. 
 
 I could have thought, when I saw the pomegranates blooming in 
 the open air, robust and loaded with flowers, that I was in the south. 
 The magnolia, no dwarf, as we see it elsewhere, but splendid and 
 magnificent, and full-grown, like a great tree, perfumed all my garden 
 with its huge white blossoms, which contain in their thick chalices an 
 abundance of I know not what kind of oil, an oil sweet and penetrat- 
 ing, whose odour follows you everywhere; you are enveloped in it. 
 
 We found ourselves this time in possession of a true garden, a 
 large establishment, a thousand domestic occupations with which we 
 had previously dispensed. A wild Breton girl rendered help only in 
 the coarser tasks. Save one weekly journey to the town, we were 
 very lonely, but in an extremely busy solitude; rising very early in 
 the morning, at the first awakening of the birds, and even before the 
 day. It is true that we retired to rest at a good hour, and almost at 
 the same time as the birds. 
 
 This profusion of fruits, vegetables, and plants of eveiy kind, 
 enabled us to keep numerous domestic animals: only the difficulty 
 was, that nourishing them, knowing each of them, and well-known by
 
 4C HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 them, we could not make up our minds to eat them. "We planted, 
 and here we met with quite a distinct kind of inconvenience our 
 plantations were nearly always devoured beforehand. 
 
 This earth, fertile in vegetables, was equally or more prolific of 
 destructive animals ; enormous capacious snails, devouring insects. 
 In the morning we collected a great tubful of snails. The next 
 day you would never have thought so. There still seemed to be 
 the full complement. 
 
 Our hens did their best. But how much more effective would 
 have been the skilful and prudent stork, the admirable scavenger of 
 Holland and all marshy districts, which some Western lands ought at 
 all costs to adopt. Everybody knows the affectionate respect in which 
 this excellent bird is held by the Dutch. In their markets you may 
 see him standing peacefully on one foot, dreaming in the midst of 
 the crowd, and feeling as safe as in the heart of the deepest deserts. 
 It is a fantastic but well-assured fact, that the Dutch peasant who 
 has had the misfortune to wound his stork and to break his leg, pro- 
 vides him with one of wood. 
 
 To return: our residence near Nantes would have possessed an 
 infinite charm for a less absorbed mind. This beautiful spot, this great 
 liberty of work, this solitude, so sweet in such society, formed a rare 
 harmony, such as one but seldom meets with in life. Its sweetness 
 contrasted strongly with the thoughts of the present, with the gloomy
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 past which then occupied my pen. I was writing of ' 9 3. Its heroic 
 primeval history enveloped, possessed, shall I say consumed, me. All 
 the elements of happiness which surrounded me, which I sacrificed to 
 work, adjourning them for a time that, according to all appearances, 
 
 might never be mine, I regretted daily, and incessantly cast back 
 upon them a look of sorrow. It was a daily battle of affection and 
 nature, against the sombre thoughts of the human world. 
 
 That battle for me will be always a powerful souvenir. The 
 scene has remained sacred in my thought. Elsewhere it no longer 
 exists. The house is destroyed another built on its site. And it 
 is for this reason that I have dallied here a little. My cedar, how- 
 ever, has survived ; a notable thing, for architects now-a-days hate 
 trees. 
 
 When, however, I drew near the end of my task, some glimpses 
 of light enlivened the wild darkness. My sorrows were less keen, 
 when I felt sure that I should thenceforth enjoy this memorial of a 
 cruel but fertile experience. Once more I began to hear the voices
 
 48 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 of solitude, and more plainly I believe than at any other age, but 
 slowly and with unaccustomed ear, like one who shaD have been some 
 time dead, and have returned from the other world. 
 
 In my youth, before I was taken captive by this implacable 
 History, I had sympathized with nature, but with a blind warmth, 
 with a heart less tender than ardent. At a later period, when 
 residing in the suburb of Paris, I had again felt that emotion of love. 
 I watched with interest my sickly flowers in that arid soil, so 
 sensible every evening of the joy of refreshing waterings, so plainly 
 grateful. How much more at Nantes, surrounded by a nature ever 
 powerful and prolific, seeing the herbage shoot upward hour after 
 hour, and all animal life multiplying around me, ought I not, I too, 
 to expand and revive with this new sentiment ! 
 
 If there were aught that could have re-inspired my mind and 
 broken the sombre spell that lay upon it, it would have been a book 
 which we frequently read in the evening, the "Birds of France," 
 by Toussenel, a charming and felicitous transition from the thought 
 of country to that of nature. 
 
 So long as France exists, his Lark and his Redbreast, his Bullfinch, 
 his Swallow, will be incessantly read, re-read, re-told. And if there 
 were no longer a France, in its ingenious pages we should re-discover 
 
 all which it owned of good, the true breath of that country, the 
 Gallic sense, the French esprit, the very soul of our fatherland. 
 
 The formulae of a system which it bears, however, very lightly, its
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 49 
 
 forced comparisons (which sometimes make us think of those too 
 spirituel animals of Granville), do not prevent the French genius, gay, 
 good, serene, and courageous, young as an April sun, from illuminating 
 the entire book. It possesses numerous passages enlivened with the 
 joyousness, the elasticity, the gushing song of the lark in the first 
 day of spring. 
 
 Add a thing of great beauty, which does not spring from youth. 
 The author, a child of the Meuse and of a land of hunters, himself in his 
 early years an ardent and impassioned sportsman, appears altered in 
 character by his book. He wavers visibly between the first habits of 
 slaughterous youth, and his new sentiment, his tenderness for those 
 pathetic lives which he unveils for these souls, these beings recognized 
 by his soul. I dare to say that thenceforth he will no more hunt 
 without remorse. Father and second creator of this world of love 
 and innocence, he will find interposed between them and him a barrier 
 of compassion. And what barrier ? His own work, the book in 
 which he gives them life. 
 
 I had scarcely begun my book, when it became necessary for me to 
 leave Nantes. I, too, was ill. The dampness of the climate, the hard 
 continuous labour, and still more keenly, without doubt, the conflict 
 of my thoughts, seemed to have struck home to that vital nerve of 
 which nothing had ever before taken hold. The road which our 
 swallows tracked for us, we followed ; we proceeded southward. We 
 fixed our transitory nest in a fold of the Apennines, two leagues from 
 Genoa. 
 
 An admirable situation, a secure and well-defended shelter, which, 
 in the variable climate of that coast, enjoys the astonishing boon of 
 an equable temperature. Although one could not entirely dispense 
 with fires, the winter sun, warm in January, encouraged the lizard 
 and the invalid to think it was spring. Shall I confess it, however ? 
 These oranges, these citrons, harmonizing in their changeless foliage 
 with the changeless blue of heaven were not without monotony. 
 Animated life was very rare. There were few or no small birds ; no 
 sea birds. The fish, limited in numbers, did not fill with life those 
 
 4
 
 50 
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 translucent waters. My glance pierced them to a great depth, and 
 saw nothing but solitude, and the white and black rocks which form 
 the bed of that gulf of marble. 
 
 The littoral, exceedingly narrow, is nothing but a small cornice, an 
 extremely confined border, a mere eyebrow (sourcil) of the mountains, 
 as the Latins would have said. To ascend the ladder and overlook 
 the gulf is, even for the most robust, a violent gymnastic effort. My 
 sole promenade was a little quay, or rather a rugged circular road, 
 which wound, with a breadth of about three feet, between ancient 
 garden walls, rocks, and precipices. 
 
 
 Deep was the silence, sparkling the sea, but all lonesome and 
 monotonous, except for the passage of a few distant barks. Work 
 was prohibited to me ; for the first time for thirty years, I was separated 
 from my pen, and had escaped from that paper and ink existence in 
 which I had previously lived. This pause, which I thought so
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 51 
 
 barren, in reality proved to me very fertile. I watched, I observed. 
 Unknown voices awoke within me. 
 
 At some distance from Genoa, and the excellent friends whom we 
 knew there, our only society was the small people of the lizards, which 
 run over the rocks, played, and slumbered in the sun. Charming, 
 innocent animals, which every noon, when we dined, and the quay was 
 absolutely deserted, amused me with their vivacious and graceful 
 evolutions. At the outset my presence had appeared to disquiet 
 them ; but a week had not passed before all, even the youngest, knew 
 me, and knew they had nothing to fear from the peaceful dreamer. 
 
 Such the animal, and such the man. The abstemious life of my 
 lizards, for which a fly was an ample banquet, differed in nothing 
 from that of the povera gente of the coast. Many lived wholly on 
 herbs. But herbs were not abundant in the barren and gaunt moun- 
 tain. The destitution of the country exceeded all belief. I was not 
 grieved at daring it, at finding myself sympathizing with the woes of 
 Italy, my glorious nurse, who has nourished France, and me more 
 than any Frenchman. 
 
 A nurse ? That was she ever, so far as was possible in her poverty 
 of resources, in the poverty of nature to which my health reduced me. 
 Incapable of food, I still received from her the only nourishment which 
 I could support, the vivifying air and the light the sun, which fre- 
 quently permitted us, in one of the severest winters of the century, to 
 keep the windows open in January. 
 
 In the lazy, lizard-like life which I lived upon that shore, I wholly 
 occupied myself with the surrounding country, with the apparent 
 antiquity of the Apennines and the mountains which girdle the 
 Mediterranean. Is there then no remedy ? Or rather, in their 
 leafless declivities shall we not discover the fountains which may 
 renew their life ? Such was the idea which absorbed me. I no 
 longer thought of my illness ; I troubled myself no more about re- 
 covering. I had made what is truly great progress for an invalid : I 
 had forgotten myself. My business henceforward was to resuscitate 
 that mighty patient, the Apennines. And as by degrees I became
 
 52 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 aware that the case was not hopeless that the waters were hidden, not 
 
 lost that by their discovery we might restore vegetable life, and 
 
 eventually animal life, I felt myself much stronger, refreshed, renewed. 
 For each spring that revealed itself, I grew less athirst ; I felt its 
 waters rise within my soul. 
 
 Ever fertile is Italy. She proved so to me through her very bar- 
 renness and poverty. The ruggedness of the bald Apennines, the lean 
 Ligurian coast, did but the more awaken, by contrast, the recollection 
 of that genial nature which cherishes the luxuriant richness of our 
 western France. I missed the animal life ; I felt its absence. From 
 the mute foliage of sombre orange-gardens I demanded the woodland 
 birds. For the first time I perceived the seriousness of human 
 existence when it is no longer surrounded by the grand society of 
 innocent beings whose movements, voices, and sports are, so to speak, 
 the smile of creation. 
 
 A revolution took place in me which I shall, perhaps, some day 
 relate. I returned, with all the strength of my ailing existence, to the 
 thoughts which I had uttered, in 1846, in my book of "The People," 
 to that City of God where the humble and simple, peasants and 
 artisans, the ignorant and unlettered, barbarians and savages, children, 
 and those other children, too, which we call animals, are all citizens 
 under different titles, have all their privileges and their laws, their 
 places at the great civic banquet. " I protest, for my part, that if any 
 one remains in the rear whom the City still rejects and does not 
 shelter with her rights, I myself will not enter in, but will halt upon 
 her threshold." 
 
 Thus, all natural histoiy I had begun to regard as a branch of 
 the political. Every living species came, each in its humble right, 
 striking at the gate and demanding admittance to the bosom of 
 Democracy. Why should their elder brothers repulse them beyond 
 the pale of those laws which the universal Father harmonizes with 
 the law of the world ? 
 
 Such, then, was my renovation, this tardy new life (vita nuova), 
 which led me, step by step, to the natural sciences. Italy, whose
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 63 
 
 influence over my destiny has always been great, was its scene, its 
 occasion, just as, thirty years before, it had lit for me, through Vico, 
 the first spark of the historic fire. 
 
 Beloved and beneficent nurse ! Because I had for one moment 
 shared her sorrows, suffered, dreamed with her, she bestowed on me a 
 priceless gift, worth more than all the diamonds of Golconda. What 
 gift ? A profound sympathy of spirit, a fruitful interchange of the 
 most intimate ideas, a perfect home-harmony in the thought of Nature. 
 
 We arrived at this goal by two paths : I, by my love of the City, 
 by the effort of completing it through an association of self with all 
 other beings ; my wife, by religious feeling and by her filial reverence 
 for the fatherhood of God. 
 
 Henceforth we were able, every evening, to enjoy a mutual feast. 
 
 I have already explained how this work, unknown to ourselves, 
 grew rich, was rendered fruitful, was impelled forward, by our modest 
 auxiliaries. They have almost always dictated it. 
 
 Our Parisian flowers prepared what our birds of Nantes accom- 
 plished. A certain nightingale of which I speak at the close of the 
 book crowned the work. 
 
 These divers impressions blended and melted together, on our return 
 to France, and especially here, in the presence of the ocean. At the 
 promontory of La Heve, under the venerable elms which overshadow 
 it, this revelation completed itself. The gulls, gannets, and guillemots 
 of the coast, the small birds of the groves, could say nothing which 
 was not understood. All things found an echo in our hearts, like so 
 many internal voices. 
 
 The Pharos, the huge cliff, from three to four hundred feet in 
 height,* which from so lofty an elevation overlooks the vast embouchure 
 of the Seine, the Calvados, and the ocean, was the customary goal of 
 our promenades, and our resting-point. We usually climbed to it by 
 a deep covered road, full of freshness and shadow, which suddenly 
 opened upon this immense lighthouse. Sometimes we ascended the 
 
 * There are two lights, of which the more elevated is 39G feet above the sea-level. 
 Translator.
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 colossal staircase which, without surprises, in the full sunlight, and 
 always facing the mighty sea, leads by three flights to the summit, 
 each flight covering upwards of a hundred feet. You cannot accom- 
 plish this ascent at one breath ; at the second stage, you breathe, you 
 seat yourself for a few moments by the monument which the widow 
 of one of France's greatest soldiers has raised to his memory, in the 
 hope that its pyramid might prove a beacon to the mariner, and 
 guard him from shipwreck. 
 
 This cliff, of a very sandy soil, loses a little every winter.* It is 
 not, however, the sea which gnaws at it ; the heavy rains wash it 
 away, carrying off the de'bris, which, at first bare and shapeless, bear 
 eloquent witness to their downfall. But tender and gracious Nature 
 does not long suffer this. She speedily attires them, bestows upon 
 them greensward, herbs, shrubs, briers, which in due time become 
 miniature oases on the declivity, Liliput landscapes suspended on 
 the vast cliff, consoling its gloomy barrenness with their sweet youth. 
 
 Thus the Beautiful and the Sublime here embrace, a thing of rarity. 
 
 * La Heve is the ancient Caletorum Promontorinm, and situated about three miles north- 
 west of Havre. Translator.
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 65 
 
 The storm-beaten mountain relates to you the epopea of earth, its rude 
 dramatic history, and shows its bones in evidence of its truth. But 
 these young children of chance, who spring up on its arid flank, prove 
 that she is still fertile, that her de'bris contain the elements of a new 
 organization, that all death is a life begun. 
 
 So these ruins have never caused us* any sadness. We have con- 
 versed among them freely of destiny, providence, death, the life to 
 come. I, whom age and toil have given a right to die she, whose 
 brow is already bent by the trials of infancy and a wisdom beyond 
 her years, we have not lived the less for a grand inspiration of soul, 
 for the rejuvenescent breath of that much-loved mother, Nature.* 
 
 Sprung from her at so great, a distance from one another, so united 
 in her to-day, we would fain have rendered eternal this rare moment 
 of existence, " have cast anchor on the island of time." And how 
 could we better realize our idea than by this work of tenderness, of 
 universal brotherhood, of adoption of all life ! 
 
 My wife incessantly recalled me to it, enlarging my sentiments of 
 individual tenderness by her facile, bright, emotional interpretation 
 of the spirit of the country and the voices of solitude. 
 
 It was then, among other things, that I learned to understand 
 birds which, like the swallows, sing little, but talk much^ prattling 
 of the fine weather, of the chase, of scanty or abundant food, of 
 their approaching departure ; in fact, of all their affairs. I had 
 listened to them at Nantes in October, at Turin in June. Their 
 September causeries were more intelligible at La Heve. We trans- 
 lated them easily in all their fond vivacity, all their joyousness of 
 youth and good-humour, free from ostentation or satire, in accord 
 with the happy moderation of a bird so free and so wise, which 
 appears not ungratefully to recognize that he has received from God 
 a lot of such signal felicity. 
 
 Alas ! even the swallow is not spared in that senseless warfare 
 
 * That the reader may feel the full force of this passage, I subjoin the original : " Nous 
 n'en vivions pas moins d'un grand souffle d'ame, de la rajeunissante haleine de cette mere 
 aimee, la Nature."
 
 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
 
 fpLpi which we wage against nature. We destroy the very birds 
 that protect our crops our guardians, our honest labourers 
 which, following close upon the plough, seize the future 
 i I pest, which the heedless peasant disturbs only to replace in 
 
 the earth. 
 
 Whole races, valuable and interesting, perish. Those lords of ocean, 
 those wild and sagacious creatures which Nature has endowed with 
 blood and milk I speak of the cetacea to what number are they 
 reduced ! Many great quadrupeds have vanished from the globe. 
 Many animals of every kind, without utterly disappearing, have 
 recoiled before man ; brutalized (ensauvayes) they fly, they lose their 
 natural arts, and relapse into barbarism. The heron, whose prudence 
 and address were remarked by Aristotle, is now, at least in 
 Europe, a misanthropical, narrow-minded, half-foolish animal. The 
 beaver, which, in America, in its peaceful solitudes, had become 
 a great architect and engineer, has grown discouraged ;* to-day 
 it has scarcely the heart to excavate a burrow in the earth. The 
 hare, so gentle, so handsome, distinguished by its fur, its swiftness, 
 its wonderful delicacy of ear, will soon have disappeared ; the few 
 of its kind which remain are positively embruted. And yet the 
 
 * Compare the interesting descriptions of the huge dams erected by beavers across the 
 American rivers, in Milton and Cheadle's valuable narrative of travel, " The North-West 
 Passage by Land." Translator.
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 57 
 
 poor animal is still docile and teachable : in careful hands it might 
 be taught the things most antagonistic to its nature, even those 
 which need a display of courage.* 
 
 These thoughts, which others have expressed in far better 
 language, we cherished at heart. They had been our aliment, our 
 habitual dream, over which we had /brooded for two years, in 
 Brittany, in Italy ; it is here that they have developed into 
 what shall I say a book ? a living fruit ? At La Heve it ap- 
 peared to us in its genial idea, that of the primitive alliance which 
 God has ordained for all his creatures, of the love-bond which the 
 universal mother has sealed between her children. 
 
 The winged order the loftiest, the tenderest, the most sympathetic 
 with man is that which man now-a-days pursues most cruelly. 
 
 What is required for its protection ? To reveal the bird as soul, 
 to show that it is a person. 
 
 The bird, then, a single bird that is all my book ; but the bird 
 in all the variations of its destiny, as it accommodates itself to the 
 thousand conditions of earth, to the thousand vocations of the winged 
 life. Without any knowledge of the more or less ingenious systems of 
 transformations, the heart gives oneness to its object ; it neither 
 allows itself to be arrested by the external differences of species, 
 nor by that death which seems to sever the thread. Death, rude and 
 cruel, intervenes in this book, in the full current of life, but as a 
 passing accident only ; life does not the less continue. 
 
 The agents of death, the murdering species, so glorified by man, 
 who recognizes in them his image, are here replaced veiy low in 
 the hierarchy, remitted to the rank which is rightly theirs. They 
 are the most deficient in the two special qualifications of the bird 
 nest-making and song. Sad instruments of the fatal passage, they 
 appear in the midst of this book as the blind ministers of nature's 
 hardest necessity. 
 
 But the lofty light of life art in its earliest dawn shines only 
 
 * The reader will hardly require to be reminded of the poet Cowper and his hares. 
 Translator,
 
 68 THE STUDY OF NATURE. 
 
 in the smallest. With the small birds, unostentatious as they are, 
 modestly and seriously clad, art begins, and, on certain points, 
 rises higher than the sphere of man. Far from equalling the 
 nightingale, we have been unable to express or to render an account 
 of his sublime song. 
 
 The eagle, then, is in these pages dethroned ; the nightingale 
 reigns in his stead. In that moral crescendo, where the bird con- 
 tinuously advances in self-culture, the apex and the supreme point 
 are naturally discovered, not in brutal strength, so easily overpassed 
 by man, but in a puissance of art, of soul, and of aspiration which 
 man has not attained, and which, beyond this world, transports 
 him in a moment to the further spheres. 
 
 High justice and true, because it is clear- visioned and tender ! 
 Feeble on too many points, I doubt not, this book is strong in 
 tenderness and faith. It is one, constant and faithful. Nothing 
 makes it divaricate. Above death and its false divorce, through life 
 and the masks which disguise its unity, it flies, it loves to hover, from 
 nest to nest, from egg to egg, from love to the love of God. 
 
 LA HEVE, NEAR .HAVRE, September 21, 1855.

 
 
 THE EGG.
 
 r" / 
 
 before 
 live. 
 In 
 
 THE wise ignorance, the clear-seeing instinct 
 of our forefathers gave utterance to this oracle : 
 " Everything springs from the egg ; it is the world's 
 ^ ' cradle." 
 
 Even our original, but especially the diversity 
 of our destiny, is due to the mother. She acts and she 
 foresees, she loves with a stronger or a weaker love, 
 she is more or less the mother. The more she is so, 
 the higher mounts her offspring ; each degree in 
 existence depends on the degree of her love. 
 
 What can the mother effect in the mobile existence 
 * of the fish ? Nothing, but trust her birth to the ocean. 
 What in the insect world, where she generally dies as 
 soon as she has produced the egg ? To obtain for it 
 dying a secure asylum, where it may come to light, and 
 
 the case of the superior animal, the quadruped, where the
 
 64 THE EGG. 
 
 warm blood should surely stir up love, where the mother's womb is 
 so long the rest and home of her young, the cares of maternity are 
 also of minor import. The offspring is born fully formed, clothed 
 in all things like its mother ; and its food awaits it. And in many 
 species its education is accomplished without any further care on the 
 part of the mother than she bestowed when it grew in her bosom. 
 
 Far otherwise is the destiny of the bird. It would die if it 
 /were not loved. 
 
 Loved ! Every mother loves, from the ocean to the stars. I 
 should rather say anxiously tended, surrounded by infinite love, 
 enfolded in the warmth of the maternal magnetism. 
 
 Even in the egg, where you see it protected by a calcareous 
 shell, it feels so keenly the access of air, that every chilled point 
 in the egg is a member the less for the future bird. Hence the 
 prolonged and disquieted labour of incubation, the self-inflicted cap- 
 tivity, the motionlessness of the most mobile of beings. And all 
 this so very pitiful ! A stone pressed so long to the heart, to the 
 flesh often the live flesh ! 
 
 It is born, but born naked. While the baby-quadruped, even 
 from his first day of life, is clothed, and crawls, and already walks, 
 the young bird (especially in the higher species) lies motionless upon 
 its back, without the protection of any feathers. It is not only 
 while hatching it, but in anxiously rubbing it, that the mother main- 
 tains and stimulates warmth. The colt can readily suckle and 
 nourish itself; the young bird must wait while the mother seeks, 
 selects, and prepares its food. She cannot leave it; the father 
 must here supply her place ; behold the real, veritable family, faith- 
 fulness in love, and the first moral enlightenment. 
 
 I will say nothing here of a protracted, very peculiar, and very 
 hazardous education that of flight. And nothing here of that of 
 song, so refined among the feathered artists. The quadruped soon 
 knows all that he will ever know : he gallops when born ; and if 
 he experiences an occasional fall, is it the same thing, tell me, to slide 
 without danger among the herbage, as to drop headlong from the skies?
 
 THE EGG. 
 
 : ,: 
 
 
 Let us take the egg in our hands. This elliptical form, at once 
 the most easy of comprehension, the most beautiful, and presenting 
 the fewest salient points to external attack, gives one the idea of 
 a complete miniature world, of a perfect harmony, from which 
 nothing can be taken away, and to which nothing can be added. 
 No inorganic matter adopts this perfect form. I conceive that, 
 under its apparent inertness, it holds a high mystery of life and 
 some accomplished work of God. 
 
 What is it, and what should issue from it ? I know not. But 
 she knows well yonder trembling creature who, with outstretched 
 wings, embraces it and matures it with her warmth ; she who, 
 until now the free queen of the air, lived at her own wild will, 
 but, suddenly fettered, sits motionless on that mute object which 
 one would call a stone, and which as yet gives no revelation. 
 
 Do not speak of blind instinct. Facts demonstrate how that 
 clear-sighted instinct modifies itself according to surrounding con- 
 ditions ; in other words, how that rudimentary reason differs in its 
 nature from the lofty human reason. 
 
 Yes ; that mother knows and sees distinctly by means of the pene- 
 5
 
 66 THE EGG. 
 
 tration and clairvoyance of love. Through the thick calcareous 
 shell, where vour rude hand perceives nothing, she feels by a 
 delicate tact the mysterious being which she nourishes and forms. 
 It is this feeling which sustains her during the arduous labour of 
 incubation, during her protracted captivity. She sees it delicate 
 and charming in its soft down of infancy, and she predicts with the 
 vision of hope that it will be vigorous and bold, when, with out- 
 spread wings, it shall eye the sun and breast the storm. 
 
 Let us profit by these days. Let us hasten nothing. Let us 
 contemplate at our leisure this delightful image of the maternal 
 reverie of that second childbirth by which she completes the 
 invisible object of her love the unknown offspring of desire. 
 
 A delightful spectacle, but even more sublime than delightful. 
 Let us be modest here. With us the mother loves that which stirs 
 in her bosom that which she touches, clasps, enfolds in assured 
 possession ; she loves the reality, certain, agitated and moving, which 
 responds to her own movements. But this one loves the future 
 and unknown ; her heart beats alone, and nothing as yet responds 
 to it. Yet is not her love the less intense ; she devotes herself and 
 suffers ; she will suffer unto death for her dream and her faith. 
 
 -V-^S^fc' *, 
 
 'jryiT 
 
 .. : 
 
 ;*9^faHKte3*^* 
 
 A faith powerful and efficacious ! It produces a world, and one 
 of the most wonderful of worlds. Speak not to me of suns, of the 
 elementary chemistry of globes. The marvel of a humming-bird's egg 
 transcends the Milky Way.
 
 THE EGG. G7 
 
 Understand that this little point which to you seems imperceptible, 
 is an entire ocean the sea of milk where floats in embryo the well- 
 beloved of heaven. It floats ; fears no shipwreck ; it is held suspended 
 /by the most delicate ligaments; it is saved from jar and shock. It 
 swims all gently in the warm element, as it will swim hereafter in 
 the atmosphere. A profound serenity, a perfect state in the bosom 
 of a nourishing habitation ! And how superior to all suckling 
 (allaitemenf) ! 
 
 But see how, in this divine sleep, it has perceived its mother and 
 her magnetic warmth. And it, too, begins to dream. Its dream is 
 of motion ; it imitates, it conforms to its mother ; its first act, the 
 act of an obscure love, is to resemble her. 
 
 " Knowest thou not that love transforms 
 Into itself whate'er it loves ? " 
 
 And as soon as it resembles her, it will seek to join her. It in- 
 clines, it presses more closely against the shell, which thenceforth is 
 the sole barrier between it and its mother. Then, then she listens ! 
 Sometimes she is blessed by hearing already its first tender piping. 
 It will remain a prisoner no longer. Grown daring, it will take its 
 own part. It has a beak, and makes use of it. It strikes, it cracks, 
 it cleaves its prison wall. It has feet, and brings them to its assist- 
 ance. See now the work begun ! Its reward is deliverance ; it 
 enters into liberty. 
 
 To tell the rapture, the agitation, the prodigious inquietude, the 
 mother's many cares, is beyond our province here ; of the difficulties 
 of its education we have already spoken. 
 
 It is only through time and tenderness that the bird receives its 
 initiation. Superior by its powers of flight, it is so much the more 
 so through this, that it has had a home and has gained life through 
 its mother ; fed by her, and by its father emancipated, the freest of 
 beings is the favourite of love. 
 
 If one wishes to admire the fertility of nature, the vigour of inven- 
 tion, the charming, and in a certain sense, the terrifying richness, which 
 from one identical creation draws a million of opposite miracles, one
 
 68 THE EGG. 
 
 should regard this egg, so exactly like another, and yet the source 
 whence shall issue the innumerable tribes born to a life of wings on 
 earth. 
 
 From the obscure unity it pours out, it expands, in countless and 
 prodigiously divergent rays, those winged flames which you name birds, 
 glowing with ardour and life, with colour and song. From the 
 
 burning hand of God escapes continuously that vast fan of astound- 
 ing diversity, where everything shines, where everything sings, where 
 everything floods me with harmony and light. Dazzled, I lower my 
 eyes. 
 
 Melodious sparks of celestial fire, whither do ye not attain ? 
 For ye exists nor height nor distance ; the heaven, the abyss, it is 
 all one. What cloud, what watery deep is inaccessible to ye ? Earth, 
 in all its vast circuit, great as it is with its mountains, its seas, and 
 its valleys, is wholly yours. I hear ye under the Equator, ardent as 
 the arrows of the sun. I hear ye at the Pole, in the eternal lifeless 
 silence, where the last tuft of moss has faded ; the very bear sees 
 ye afar, and slinks away growling. Ye, ye still remain ; ye live, ye 
 Jlove, ye bear witness to God, ye reanimate death. In those terrestrial 
 deserts your touching loves invest with an atmosphere of innocence 
 what man has designated the barbarism of nature.
 
 s^ 
 
 THE NU-MIATIC BJRDS.
 
 THE POLE. 
 AQUATIC BIRDS. 
 
 THAT powerful fairy which endows man with most of 
 his blessings and misfortunes, Imagination, sets herself to 
 work to travestie nature for him in a hundred ways. 
 In all which exceeds his energies or wounds his sensa- 
 tions, in all the necessities which overrule the harmony of 
 the world, he is tempted to see and to curse a maleficent 
 will. One writer has made a book against the Alps; a 
 poet has foolishly placed the throne of evil among those 
 beneficent glaciers which are the reservoir of the waters of Europe, 
 which pour forth its rivers and make its fertility. Others, still more 
 absurdly, have vented their wrath upon the ices of the Pole, misunder-
 
 72 THE POLE. 
 
 standing the magnificent economy of the globe, the majestic balance 
 of those alternative currents which are the life of Ocean. They have 
 seen war and hate, and the malice of nature, in those regular and 
 profoundly pacific movements of the universal Mother. 
 
 Such are the dreams of man. Animals, however, do not share 
 in these antipathies, these terrors ; a twofold attraction, on the 
 contrary, impels them yearly towards the Poles in innumerable 
 legions. 
 
 Every year birds, fishes, gigantic cetaceans, hasten to people the 
 seas and islands which surround the southern Pole. Wonderful seas, 
 fertile, full to overflowing of rudimentary life (in the stage of the 
 zoophytes), of living fermentation, of viscous waters, of spawn, of 
 superabundant embryos. 
 
 Both the Poles are for these innocent myriads, everywhere pur- 
 sued by foes, the great, the happy rendezvous of love and peace. The 
 whale, that unfortunate fish, which has, however, like ourselves, sweet 
 milk and hot blood, that poor proscribed unfortunate which will soon 
 have disappeared it is there that it again finds a refuge, a halt for 
 the sacred moments of maternity. No races are of purer or gentler 
 disposition, none more fraternal towards their kin, more tender towards 
 their offspring. Cruel ignorance of man ! How can he have slain 
 without horror the walrus and the seal, which in so many points 
 are like himself? 
 
 The giant man of the old ocean, the whale a being as gentle 
 as man the dwarf is brutal enjoys this advantage over him : sure of 
 species whose fecundity is alarming, it can accomplish the mission 
 of destruction which nature has ordained, without inflicting upon them 
 any pain. It has neither teeth nor saw ; none of those means of 
 punishment with which the destroyers of the world are so abundantly 
 provided. Suddenly absorbed in the depths of this moving crucible, 
 they lose themselves, they swoon away, they undergo instantaneously 
 the transformations of its grand chemistry. Most of the living matter 
 on which the inhabitants of the Polar Seas support themselves ceta- 
 ceans, fishes, birds have neither organism nor the means of suffering.
 
 AQUATIC BIRDS. 
 
 73 
 
 Hence these tribes possess a character of innocence which moves us 
 infinitely, fills us with sympathy, and also, we must confess, with envy. 
 Thrice blessed, thrice fortunate that world where life renews and 
 repairs itself without the cost of death that world which is generally 
 free from pain, which ever finds in its nourishing waters the sea 
 of milk, has no need of cruelty, and still clings to Nature's kindly 
 breast ! 
 
 Before man's appearance, profound was the peace of these soli- 
 tudes and their amphibious races. From the bear and the blue fox, 
 the two tyrants of that region, they found an easy shelter in the ever- 
 open bosom of the sea, their bountiful nurse. 
 
 When our mariners first landed there, their only difficulty was to 
 pierce through the mass of curious and kindly-natured phocae which 
 came to gaze upon them. The penguins of Australian lands, the auks 
 and razor-bills of the Arctic shores, peaceable and more active, made no 
 movement. The wild geese, whose fine down, of incomparable softness, 
 furnishes the much-prized eider, readily permitted the spoilers to 
 approach and seize them with their hands. 
 
 The attitude of these novel creatures was the cause of pleasant 
 mistakes on the part of our navigators. Those who from afar first 
 saw the islands thronged with penguins, standing upright, in their
 
 74 THE POLE. 
 
 costume of white and black, imagined them to be bands of children 
 in white aprons ! The stiffness of their small arms one can scarcely 
 call them wings in these rudimentary birds their awkwardness on 
 land, their difficulty of movement, prove that they belong to the 
 ocean, where they swim with wonderful ease, and which is their 
 natural and legitimate element. One might speak of them as its 
 emancipated eldest sons, as ambitious fishes, candidates for the char- 
 acters of birds, which had already progressed so far as to transform 
 /their fins into scaly pinions. The metamorphosis was not attended 
 with complete success; as birds powerless and clumsy, they remain 
 skilful fishes. 
 
 Or again, with their large feet attached so near to the body, with 
 their neck short or poised on a great cylindrical trunk, with their 
 flattened head, one might judge them to be near relations of their 
 neighbours the seals, whose kindly nature they possess, but not their 
 intelligence. 
 
 These eldest sons of nature, eye-witnesses of the ancient ages of 
 transformation, appeared like so many strange hieroglyphics to those 
 who first beheld them. With eyes mild, but sad and pale as the 
 face of ocean, they seemed to regard man, the last-born of the planet, 
 from the depths of their antiquity.
 
 AQUATIC BIRDS. 
 
 76 
 
 Levaillant, not far from the Cape of Good Hope, found them in 
 great numbers on a desert isle where rose the tomb of a poor Danish 
 mariner, a child of the Arctic Pole, whom Fate had led thither to die 
 among the Austral wastes, and between whom and his fatherland 
 the density of the globe intervened. Seals and penguins supplied him 
 with a numerous society; the former prostrate and lying down; the 
 latter standing erect, and mounting guard with dignity around the 
 lonely grave: all melancholy, and responding to the moans of Ocean, 
 which one might have imagined to be the wail of the dead. 
 
 Their winter station is the Cape. In that warm African exile they 
 invest themselves with a good and solid coat of fat, which will be 
 very useful defences for them against cold and hunger. When spring 
 returns, a secret voice admonishes them that the tempestuous thaw has 
 broken and rent the sharp crystalline ice; that the blissful Polar Seas, 
 their country and their cradle, their sweet love-Eden, are open and 
 calling upon them. Impatiently they set forth; with rapid wings 
 they oar their way across five or six hundred leagues of sea, without 
 other resting-place than occasional pieces of floating ice may, for a 
 few moments, offer them. They arrive, and all is ready. A summer 
 of thirty days' duration makes them happy. 
 
 With a grave happiness. The happiness of discovering a profound 
 tranquillity separates them from the sea where their sole element lies. 
 The season of love and incubation is, therefore, a time of fasting and
 
 76 THE POLE. 
 
 inquietude. The blue fox, their enemy, chases them into the desert. 
 But union is strength. The mothers all incubate at one and the same 
 time, and the legion of fathers watches around them, prepared to 
 sacrifice themselves in their behalf. Let but the little one be hatched, 
 and the serried ranks conduct it to the sea ; it leaps into the waters, 
 and is saved ! 
 
 Stern, sad climates ! Yet who would not love them, when he sees 
 there the vast tenderness of nature, which impartially orders the home 
 of man and the bird, the central source of love and devotion? From 
 nature the Northern home receives a moral grace which that of the 
 ' South rarely possesses ; a sun shines there which is not the sun of 
 the Equator, but far more gentle that of the soul. There every 
 creature is exalted, either by the very austerity of the climate or the 
 urgency of peril. 
 
 The supreme effort in this world of the North, which is nowhere 
 that of beauty, is to have discovered the Beautiful. This miracle 
 springs from the mother's soul. Lapland has but one art, one soli- 
 tary object of art the cradle. "It is a charming object," says a 
 lady who has visited those regions; " elegant and graceful, like a pretty 
 little shoe lined with the soft fur of the white hare, more delicate than 
 the feathers of the swan. Around the hood, where the infant's head 
 io completely protected, warmly and softly sheltered, are hung fes- 
 toons of coloured pearls, and tiny chains of copper or silver which 
 clink incessantly, and whose jingling makes the young Laplander 
 laugh." 
 
 wonder of maternity ! Through its influence the rudest woman 
 becomes artistic, tenderly heedful. But the female is always heroic. 
 It is one of the most affecting spectacles to see the bird of the eider 
 the eider-duck plucking its down from its breast for a couch and a 
 covering for its young. And if man steals the nest, the mother still 
 continues upon herself the cruel operation. When she has stripped 
 off every feather, when there is nothing more to despoil but the 
 flesh and the blood, the father takes his turn; so that the little 
 one is clothed of themselves and their substance, by their devotion
 
 AQUATIC BIRDS. 
 
 77 
 
 and their suffering. Montaigne, speaking of a cloak which had served 
 his father, and which he loved to wear in remembrance of him, makes 
 use of a tender phrase, which this poor nest recalls to my mind " I 
 wrapped myself up in my father."
 
 . 
 
 WING.
 
 Wings ! wings ! to sweep 
 O'er mountain high and valley deep. 
 Wings ! that my heart may rest 
 In the radiant morning's breast. 
 
 ' Wings ! to hover free 
 O'er the dawn-empurpled sea. 
 Wings ! 'bove life to soar, 
 And beyond death for evermore." 
 
 RUCKERT. 
 
 IT is the cry of the whole earth, of the world, of all 
 life ; it is that which every species of animals or plants 
 utters in a hundred diverse tongues the voice which 
 issues from the very rock and the inorganic creation: 
 " Wings ! we seek for wings, and the power of flight and motion !" 
 
 Yea; the most inert bodies rush greedily into the chemical trans- 
 formations which will make them part and parcel of the current of 
 the universal life, and bestow upon them the organs of movement-' 
 and fermentation. 
 
 6
 
 82 
 
 THE WIXG. 
 
 Yea ; the vegetables, fettered by their immovable roots, expand their 
 secret loves towards a winged existence, and commend themselves to 
 the winds, the waters, the insects, in quest of a life beyond their 
 narrow limits of that gift of flight which nature has refused to them. 
 
 We contemplate pityingly those rudimentary animals, the unau 
 and the ai, sad and suffering images of man, which cannot advance a 
 step without a groan sloths or tardigrades. The names by which 
 we identify them 'we might justly reserve for ourselves. If slowness 
 be relative to the desire of movement, to the constantly futile effort 
 to progress, to advance, to act, the true tardigrade is man. His 
 faculty of dragging himself from one point of the earth to another, 
 the ingenious instruments which he has recently invented in aid of 
 that faculty all this does not lessen his adhesion to the earth ; he is 
 not the less firmly chained to it by the tyranny of gravitation. 
 
 I see upon earth but one order of created beings which enjoy the 
 power of ignoring or beguiling, by their freedom and swiftness of motion, 
 this universal sadness of impotent aspiration ; I mean those beings 
 which belong to earth, so to speak, only by the tips of their wings ;
 
 THE WING. 83 
 
 which the air itself cradles and supports, most frequently without 
 being otherwise connected with them than by guiding them at their 
 need and their caprice. 
 
 A life of ease, yet sublime ! With what a glance of scorn may 
 the weakest bird regard the strongest, the swiftest of quadrupeds a 
 tiger, a lion ! How it may smile to see them in their utter power- 
 lessness bound, fastened to the earth, which they terrify with vain 
 and useless roaring with the nocturnal wailings that bear witness 
 to the bondage of the so-called king of animals, fettered, as we are 
 all, in that inferior existence which hunger and gravitation equally 
 prepare for us ! 
 
 Oh, the fatality of the appetites! the fatality of motion which 
 compels us to drag our unwilling limbs along the earth! Implacable 
 heaviness which binds each of our feet to the dull, rude element 
 wherein death will hereafter resolve us, and says, " Son of the earth, 
 to the earth thou belongest! A moment released from its bosom, 
 thou shalt lie there henceforth for ages." 
 
 Do not let us inveigh against nature ; it is assuredly the sign that 
 we inhabit a world still in its first youth, still in a state of barbarism 
 a world of essay and apprenticeship, in the grand series of stars, one 
 of the elementary stages of the sublime initiation. This planet is the 
 world of a child. And thou, a child thou art. From this lower 
 school thou shalt be emancipated also; thy wings shall be majestic 
 and powerful. Thou shalt win and deserve, while here, by the sweat 
 of thy brow, a step forward in liberty. 
 
 Let us make an experiment. Ask of the bird while still in the 
 egg what he would wish to be; give him the option. Wilt thou be 
 a man, and share in that royalty of the globe which men have won 
 by art and toil? 
 
 No, he will immediately reply. Without calculating the immense 
 exertion, the labour, the sweat, the care, the life of slavery by which 
 we purchase sovereignty, he will have but one word to say: "A king 
 myself, by birth, of space and light, why should I abdicate when 
 man, in his loftiest ambition, in his highest aspirations after happi-
 
 84 THE WING. 
 
 ness and freedom, dreams of becoming a bird, and taking unto him- 
 self wings?" 
 
 It is in his sunniest time, his first and richest existence, in his day- 
 dreams of youth, that man has sometimes the good fortune to forget 
 that he is a man, a slave to hard fate, and chained to earth. 
 Behold, yonder, him who flies abroad, who hovers, who dominates over 
 the world, who swims in the sunbeam; he enjoys the ineffable felicity 
 of embracing at a glance an infinity of things which yesterday he 
 could only see one by one. Obscure enigma of detail, suddenly made 
 luminous to him who perceives its unity! To see the world beneath 
 one's self, to embrace, to love it! How divine, how lofty a dream! 
 Do not wake me, I pray you, never wake me! But what is this? 
 Here again are day, uproar, and labour; the harsh iron hammer, the 
 ear-piercing bell with its voice of steel, dethrone and dash me head- 
 long; my wings are rent. Dull earth, I fall to earth; bruised and 
 bent, I returu to the plough. 
 
 When, at the close of the last century, man formed the daring idea 
 of giving himself up to the winds, of mounting in the air without 
 rudder, or oar, or means of guidance, he proclaimed aloud that at 
 length he had secured his pinions, had eluded nature, and conquered 
 gravitation. Cruel and tragical catastrophes gave the lie to this 
 ambition. He studied the economy of the bird's wing, he undertook 
 to imitate it; rudely enough he counterfeited its inimitable mechanism. 
 We saw with terror, from a column of a hundred feet high, a poor 
 human bird, armed with huge wings, dart into air, wrestle with it, 
 and dash headlong into atoms. 
 
 The gloomy and fatal machine, in its laborious complexity, was a 
 sorry imitation of that admirable arm (far superior to the human 
 arm), that system of muscles, which co-operate among themselves in 
 so vigorous and lively a movement. Disjointed and relaxed, the 
 human wing lacked especially that all-powerful muscle which connects 
 the shoulder to the chest (the humerus to the sternum), and com- 
 municates its impetus to the thunderous flight of the falcon. The 
 instrument acts so directly on the mover, the oar on the rower, and
 
 THE WING. 
 
 unites with liim so perfectly that the martinet, the frigate-bird, sweeps 
 along at the rate of eighty leagues an hour, five or six times swifter 
 than our most rapid railway trains, outstripping the hurricane, and 
 with no rival but the lightning. 
 
 But even if our poor imitators had exactly imitated the wing, no- 
 thing would have been accomplished. They, then, had copied the form, 
 but not the internal structure. They thought that the bird's power of 
 ascension lay in its flight alone, forgetting the secret auxiliary which 
 nature conceals in the plumage and the bones. The mystery, the 
 true marvel lies in the faculty with which she endows the bird, of
 
 THE WING. 
 
 rendering itself light 
 
 mendous rapidity. 
 
 or heavy at its will, of admitting more or less 
 of air into its expressly constructed 
 reservoirs. Would it grow light, it 
 inflates its dimension, while dimin- 
 ishing its relative weight; by this 
 means it spontaneously ascends in 
 a medium heavier than itself. To 
 descend or drop, it contracts itself, 
 grows thin and small ; cutting 
 through the air which supported 
 and raised it in its former heavy 
 condition. Here lay the error, 
 the cause of man's fatal ignorance. 
 He assumed that the bird was a ship, 
 not a balloon. He imitated the wing 
 only ; but the wing, however skilfully 
 imitated, if not conjoined with this 
 internal force, is but a certain means 
 of destruction. 
 
 But this faculty, this rapid inhal- 
 ation or expulsion of air, of swim- 
 ming with a ballast variable at plea- 
 sure, whence does it proceed? From 
 an unique, unheard-of power of re- 
 [. spiration. The man who should in- 
 I hale a similar quantity of air at once 
 1 would be suffocated. The bird's 
 t lung, elastic and powerful, quaffs it, 
 I grows full of it, grows intoxicated 
 with vigour and delight, pours it 
 f abundantly into its bones, into its 
 aerial cells. Each aspiration is re- 
 newed second after second with tre- 
 The blood, ceaselessly vivified with fresh air,
 
 THE WING. 87 
 
 supplies eacli muscle with that inexhaustible energy which no other 
 being possesses, and which belongs only to the elements. 
 
 The clumsy image of Antaeus regaining strength each time he 
 touched the earth, his mother, does but rudely and weakly render an 
 idea of this reality. The bird does not need to seek the air that he 
 may be reinvigorated by touching it; the air seeks and flows into 
 him it incessantly kindles within him the burning fires of life. 
 
 It is this, and not the wing, which is so marvellous. Take the 
 pinions of the condor, and follow in its track, when, from the summit 
 of the Andes and their Siberian glaciers, it swoops down upon the 
 glowing shore of Peru, traversing in a minute all the temperatures and 
 all the climates of the globe, breathing at one breath the frightful mass 
 of air scorched, frozen, it matters not. You would reach the earth 
 stricken as by thunder. 
 
 The smallest bird in this matter shames the strongest quadruped. 
 Place me, says Toussenel, a chained lion in a balloon, and his harsh 
 roaring will be lost in space. Far more powerful in voice and respira- 
 tion, the little lark mounts upward, trilling its song, and makes itself 
 heard when it can be seen no longer. Its light and joyous strain, 
 uttered without fatigue, and costing nothing, seems the bliss of an 
 invisible spirit which would fain console the earth. 
 
 /Strength makes joy. The happiest of beings is the bird, because 
 it feels itself strong beyond the limits of its action; because, cradled, 
 sustained by the breath of heaven, it floats, it rises without effort, like 
 a dream. The boundless strength, the exalted faculty, obscure among 
 inferior beings, in the bird clear and vital, of deriving at will its 
 vigour from the maternal source, of drinking in life at full flood, is a 
 divine intoxication. 
 
 The tendency of every human being a tendency wholly rational, 
 not arrogant, not impious is to liken itself to Nature, the great 
 Mother, to fashion itself after her image, to crave a share of the 
 unwearied wings with which Eternal Love broods over the world. 
 
 'Human tradition is fixed in this direction. Man does not wish to 
 be a man, but an angel, a winged deity. The winged genii of Persia
 
 88 THE WING. 
 
 suggest the cherubim of Judea. Greece endows her Psyche with 
 wings, and discovers the true name of the soul, da-9/u.a, aspiration. 
 The soul has preserved her pinions ; has passed at one flight through the 
 ^shadowy Middle Age, and constantly increases in heavenly longings. 
 More spotless and more glowing, she gives utterance to a prayer, 
 breathed in the very depths of her nature and her prophetic ardour : 
 " Oh, that I were a bird!" saith man. 
 
 Woman never doubts but that her offspring will become an angel. 
 She has seen it so in her dreams. 
 
 Dreams or realities? Winged visions, raptures of the night, 
 which we shall weep so bitterly in the morning ! If ye really were ! 
 If, indeed, ye lived! If we had lost some of the causes of our 
 regret! If, from stars to stars, re-united, and launched on an eternal 
 flight, we all performed in companionship a happy pilgrimage through 
 the illimitable goodness ! 
 
 At times one is apt to believe it. Something whispers us that 
 ^ these dreams are not all dreams, but glimpses of a world of truth, 
 momentary flashes revealed through these lower clouds, certain pro- 
 mises to be hereafter fulfilled, while the pretended reality it is that 
 should be stigmatized as a foul delusion. 
 
 
 
 
 !%er 

 
 \ 
 
 THE HBST FUlTTERWIfiS 8F THE
 
 THERE is never a man, unlettered, ignorant, exhausted, 
 insensible, who can deny himself a sentiment of rever- 
 ence, I might almost say of terror, on entering the 
 halls of our Museum of Natural Histoiy. 
 
 No foreign collection, as far as my knowledge ex- 
 tends, produces this impression. 
 
 Others, undoubtedly, as the superb museum of 
 Leyden, are richer in particular branches; but none are 
 more complete, none more harmonious. This sublime harmony 
 is felt instinctively; it imposes and seizes on the mind. The 
 inattentive traveller, the chance visitor, is unwillingly affected; 
 he pauses, and he dreams. In the presence of this vast enigma, of 
 this immense hieroglyph which for the first time is displayed before 
 him, he may consider himself fortunate if he can read a character or
 
 92 THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS OF THE WING. 
 
 spell a letter. How often have different classes of persons, surprised 
 and tormented by such fantastic forms, inquired of us their meaning! 
 A word has set them in the right path, a simple indication charmed them ; 
 they have gone away contented, and promising themselves to return. 
 On the other hand, they who traversed this ocean of unknown objects 
 without comprehending them, have departed fatigued and melancholy. 
 
 Let us express our wish that an administration so enlightened, so 
 high in the ranks of science, may return to the original constitu- 
 tion of the museum, which appointed gardiens demonstrateurs 
 attendants who were also cicerones and will only admit as guardians 
 of this treasure men who can understand it, and, on occasion, become 
 its interpreters. 
 
 Another wish we dare to form is, that by the side of our renowned 
 naturalists they will place those courageous navigators, those persever- 
 ing travellers who, by their labours, their fruits, by a hundred times 
 hazarding their lives, have procured for us these costly spoils. What- 
 ever their intrinsic value, it is, perhaps, increased by the heroism and 
 grandeur of heart of these adventurers. This charming colibris,* 
 madam, a winged sapphire in which you could see only a useless ob- 
 ject of personal decoration, do you know that an Azara-f- or a Lesson^: 
 has brought it from murderous forests where one breathes nothing but 
 death? This magnificent tiger, whose skin you admire, are you 
 aware that before it could be planted here, there was a necessity that 
 it should be sought after in the jungles, encountered face to face, fired 
 at, struck in the forehead by the intrepid Levaillant? These illus- 
 
 * Family Trochilidx. 
 
 t Felix de Azara was an eminent Spanish traveller, who died at Arragon in 1811. He 
 acted as one of the commissioners appointed to trace the boundary-line between the Spanish 
 and Portuguese possessions in the New World. His researches in Paraguay made many 
 valuable contributions to natural history. Translator. 
 
 % Lesson was a French traveller of repute ; but his works are little known beyond the 
 limits of his own country. Translator. 
 
 g Fran9ois Levaillant was born at Paramaribo in Dutch Guiana, in 1753. Passionately 
 fond of natural history, and scarcely less fond of travel, he gratified both passions in 1780 
 by undertaking a series of explorations in Southern Africa. His last journey extended a 
 little beyond the tropic of Capricorn. He returned to Europe in 1784, published several 
 valuable works of travel and zoology, and died in 1824. Translator.
 
 THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS OF THE WING. 93 
 
 trious travellers, ardent lovers of nature, often without means, often 
 without assistance, have followed it into the deserts, watched and 
 surprised it in its mysterious retreats, voluntarily enduring thirst and 
 hunger and incredible fatigues; never complaining, thinking them- 
 selves too well recompensed, full of devotion, of gratitude at each 
 fresh discovery; regretting nothing in such an event, not even the 
 death of La Perouse* or Mungo Park, ) death by shipwreck, or death 
 among the savages. 
 
 Bid them live again here in our midst! If their lonely life flowed 
 free from Europe for Europe's benefit, let their images be placed in 
 the centre of the grateful crowd, with a brief exposition of their for- 
 
 * The unfortunate navigator, Jean Fra^ois de Calaup, Comte de La Perouse, was horn 
 in 1741. At an early age he entered the French navy, rose to a high grade, and distin- 
 guished himself by his services against the English in North America. In 1783 he was 
 appointed to command an expedition of discovery, and on the 1st of August 1785, sailed 
 from Brest with two frigates, the Boussole and the Astrolabe. He reached Botany Bay in 
 January 1788, and thenceforward was no more heard of for years. Several vessels were 
 despatched to ascertain his fate, hut could obtain no clue to it. In 1826, however, Captain 
 Dillon, while sailing amongst the Queen Charlotte Islands, discovered at Wanicoro the re- 
 mains of the shipwrecked vessels. A mausoleum and obelisk to the memory of their un- 
 fortunate commander was erected on the island in 1828. Translator. 
 
 f Mungo Park, the illustrious African traveller (born near Selkirk in 1771), perished on 
 his second expedition to the Niger towards the close of the year 1805. No exact informa- 
 tion of his fate has been obtained, but from the evidence collected by Clapperton and 
 Lander, it seems probable that he was drowned in attempting to navigate a narrow channel 
 of the river in the territory of Houssa. Another account, however, represents him to have 
 been murdered by the natives. Translator.
 
 94 THE FIRST FLUTTEBINGS OF THE WING. 
 
 tunate discoveries, their sufferings, and their sublime courage. More 
 than one young man shall be moved by the sight of these heroes, and 
 depart to dream enthusiastically of following in their footsteps. 
 
 Herein lies the twofold grandeur of the place. Its treasures were 
 sent by heroic men, and they were collected, classified, and harmonized 
 by illustrious physicists, to whom all things flowed as to a legitimate 
 centre, and whom their position, no less than their intellect, induced 
 to accomplish here the centralization of nature. 
 
 In the last century, the great movement of the sciences revolved 
 around a man of genius, influential by his rank, his social relations, 
 his fortune M. the Count de Buffon. All the donations of men of 
 science, travellers, and kings, came to him, and by him were classified 
 in this museum. In our own days a grander spectacle has fixed upon 
 this spot the eager eyes of all the nations of the world, when two 
 /mighty men (or rather two systems), Cuvier and Geoflroy, made 
 this their battle-field. All the world enrolled itself on the one side 
 or the other; all took part in the strife, and despatched to the 
 Museum, either in support of or opposition to the experiments, 
 books, animals, or facts previously unknown. Hence these collections, 
 which one might suppose to be dead, are really living; they still 
 throb with the recollections of the fray, are still animated by the lofty 
 minds which invoked all these beings to be the witnesses of their pro- 
 lific struggle. 
 
 It is no fortuitous gathering yonder. It consists of closely 
 connected series, formed and systematically arranged by profound 
 thinkers. Those species which form the most curious transitions 
 between the genera are richly represented. There you may see, far 
 more fully than elsewhere, what Linnd and Lamarck have said, that 
 just as our museums gradually grew richer, became more complete, 
 exhibited fewer lacutice, we should be constrained to acknowledge 
 that nature does nothing abruptly, in all things proceeds by gentle 
 and insensible transitions. Wherever we seem to see in her works a 
 bound, a chasm, a sudden and inharmonious interval, let us ascribe 
 the fault to ourselves ; that blank is our own ignorance.
 
 THE FIRST FLUTTERIXGS OF THE WING. 
 
 98 
 
 Let us pause for a few moments at the solemn 
 life uncertain seems still to oscillate, where Nature appears 
 herself, to examine her own volition. " Shall I be fish or 
 says the creature. It falters, and remains a fish, 
 blooded ; belongs to the mild race of lamentins and seals, 
 be bird or quadruped ?" A great question ; a perplexed 
 a prolonged and changeful combat. All its various 
 cussed ; the diverse solutions of the problems naively 
 realized by fantastic beings like the ornithorhynchus, 
 nothing of the bird but the beak ; like the poor bat, a 
 
 where 
 to question 
 mammal ?" 
 but warni- 
 " Shall I 
 
 are dis- 
 and 
 which has 
 tender and 
 
 innocent animal in its family-circle, but whose undefined form makes 
 it grim-looking and unfortunate. You perceive that nature has
 
 96 THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS OF THE WING. 
 
 sought in it the wing, and found only a hideous membranous skin, 
 which nevertheless performs a wing's function : 
 
 " I am a bird ; see you my wings ?" 
 
 Yes ; but even the wing does not make the bird. 
 
 Place yourself towards the centre of the museum, and close to 
 the clock. There you perceive, on your left, the first rudiment 
 of the wing in the penguin of the southern pole, and its brother, 
 the Arctic auk, one degree more developed ; scaly winglets, whose 
 glittering feathers rather recall the fish than the bird On land 
 the creature is feeble ; but while earth is difficult for it, air is 
 impossible. Do not complain too warmly. Its prescient mother 
 
 destines it for the Polar Seas, where it will only need to paddle. 
 She clothes it carefully in a fine coat of fat and an impenetrable 
 covering. She will have it warm among the icebergs. Which is the 
 better means ? It seems as if she had hesitated, had wavered. By 
 the side of the booby we see with surprise an essay at quite another
 
 THE FI11ST FLUTTERIXGS OF THE WING. 
 
 <J7 
 
 genus, yet one not less remarkable as a maternal precaution. I refer 
 to a very rare gorfou which I have seen in no other museum 
 attired in the rough skin of a quadruped, resembling a goat's fleece, 
 but more shining, perhaps, in the living animal, and certainly imper- 
 meable to water. 
 
 To link together the birds which do not fly, we must find the 
 connecting point in the navigator of the desert the bird-camel, the 
 ostrich, resembling the camel itself in its internal structure. At least, 
 if its imperfect wings cannot raise it above the earth, they assist it 
 powerfully in walking, and endow it with extraordinary swiftness : 
 it is the sail with which it skims its arid African ocean. 
 
 Let us return to the penguin, the true starting-point of the 
 series to the penguin, whose rudimentary pinion cannot be employed 
 as a sail, does not aid it in walking, is only an indication, like a 
 memorial of nature. 
 
 She loosens her bonds, she rises with difficulty in a first attempt 
 at flight by means of two strange figures, which appear to us both 
 grotesque and pretentious. The penguin is not of these ; a simple, 
 silly creature, you see that it never had the ambition to fly. But 
 here are they who emancipate themselves, who seem in quest of the 
 adornment or the grace of motion. The gorfou may be taken for a 
 
 penguin which has decided to quit its condition. It assumes a 
 coquettish tuft of plumes, that throws into high relief its ugliness.
 
 98 THE FIRST FLUTTERIXGS OF THE WING. 
 
 The shapeless puffin, which seems the very caricature of a caricature, 
 the paroquet, resembles it in its great beak, rudely chipped, but 
 without edge or strength. Tail-less and ill-balanced, it may always 
 be upset by the weight of its large head. It ventures, never- 
 theless, to nutter about, at the hazard of toppling over. It swoops 
 nobly close to the surface of earth, and is, perhaps, the envy of the 
 penguins and the seals. Sometimes it even risks itself at sea ill- 
 fated ship, which the lightest breeze will wreck ! 
 
 It is, however, impossible to deny that the first flight is taken. 
 Birds of various kinds carry on the enterprise more successfully. The 
 rich genus of divers (Brachypterse), in its species widely different, 
 connects the sailor-birds with the natatores, or swimmers : those, with 
 wings perfected, with a bold and secure flight, accomplish the longest 
 voyages ; these, still clothed with the glittering feathers of the penguin, 
 frisk and sport at the bottom of the seas. They want but fins and 
 respiratory organs to become actual fishes. They are alternately 
 masters of both elements, air and water.
 
 TJHUMPH OF THE W!MC.
 
 TRIUMPH OF THE WING. 
 THE FRIGATE BIRD. 
 
 LET us not attempt to particularize all the 
 intermediate gradations. Let us proceed to yonder 
 snow-white bird, which I perceive floating on high 
 among the clouds; the bird which one sees every where 
 on the water, on land, on rocks alternately concealed 
 and exposed by the waves ; the bird which one loves 
 to watch, familiar as it is, and greedy, and which 
 might well be named " the little vulture of the seas." 
 I speak of those myriads of petrels, or gulls, with 
 whose hoarse cries every waste resounds. Find me, if 
 you can, creatures endowed with fuller liberty. Day 
 and night, south or north, sea or shore, dead prey or 
 living, all is one to them. Using everything, at home everywhere, 
 they indifferently display their white sails from the waves to the 
 heaven ; the fresh breeze, ever shifting and changing, is the boun- 
 teous wind which always blows in the direction they most desire.
 
 102 
 
 TRIUMPH OF THE WING. 
 
 What are they but air, sea, the elements, which have taken wing 
 and fly ? I know nothing of it. To see their gray eye, stern and 
 cold (never successfully imitated in our museums), is to see the gray, 
 indifferent sea of the north in all its icy impassiveness. What do I 
 say ? That sea exhibits more emotion. At times phosphorescent 
 and electrical, it will rise into strong animation. Old Father Ocean, 
 saturnine and passionate, often revolves, under his pale countenance, 
 a host of thoughts. His sons, the goelands, have less of animal lifr 
 
 than he has. They fly, with their dead eyes seeking some dead prey ; 
 and in congregated flocks they expedite the destruction of the great 
 carcasses which float upon the sea for their behoof. Not ferocious in 
 aspect, amusing the voyager by their sports, by frequent glimpses of 
 their snowy pinions, they speak to him of remote lands, of the shores 
 which he leaves behind or is about to visit, of absent or hoped-for 
 friends. And they are useful to him, also, by announcing and pre- 
 dicting the coming storm. Ofttimes their sail expanded warns him 
 to furl his own. 
 
 For do not suppose that when the tempest breaks they deign to 
 fold their wings. Far from this : it is then that they set forth. The 
 storm is their harvest time ; the more terrible the sea, so much the 
 less easily can the fish escape from these daring fishers. In the Bay 
 of Biscay, where the ocean-swell, driven from the north-west, after
 
 THE FRIGATE BIKD. 
 
 103 
 
 traversing the Atlantic, arrives in mighty billows, swollen to enor- 
 mous heights, with a terrific clash and shock, the tranquil petrels 
 labour imperturbably. " I saw them," says M. de Quatrefages, 
 " describe in the air a thousand curves, plunge between two waves, 
 reappear with a fish. Swiftest when they followed the wind, slowest 
 when they confronted it, they nevertheless poised always with the 
 same ease, and never appeared to give a stroke of the wing the more 
 than in the calmest weather. And yet the billows mounted up the 
 slopes, like cataracts reversed, as high as the platform of Notre Dame, 
 and their spray higher than Montmartre. They did not appear more 
 moved by it." 
 
 Man has not their philosophy. The seaman is powerfully affected 
 when, at the decline of day, a sudden night darkening over the sea, he 
 descries, hovering about his barque, an ominous little pigeon, a bird 
 of funereal black. Black is not the fitting word ; black would be 
 less gloomy : the true tint is that of a smoky-brown, which cannot 
 be defined. It is a shadow of hell, an evil vision, which strides along 
 the waters, breasts the billows, crushes under its feet the tempest. The 
 stormy petrel (or " St. Peter") is the horror of the seaman, who sees in
 
 104 TRIUMPH OF THE WING. 
 
 it, according to his belief, a living curse. Whence does it come ? 
 How is it able to rise at such enormous distances from all land ? 
 What wills it ? What does it come in quest of, if not of a wreck ? 
 It sweeps to and fro impatiently, and already selects the corpses 
 which its accomplice, the atrocious and iniquitous sea, will soon 
 deliver up to its mercies. 
 
 Such are the fables of fear. Less panic-stricken minds would see 
 in the poor bird another ship in distress, an imprudent navigator, 
 which has also been surprised far from shore and without an asylum. 
 Our vessel is for him an island, where he would fain repose. The 
 track of the barque, which rides through both wind and wave, is in 
 itself a refuge, a succour against fatigue. Incessantly, with nimble 
 flight, he places the rampart of the vessel between himself and the 
 tempest. Timid and short-sighted, you see it only when it brings 
 the night. Like ourselves, it dreads the storm it trembles with 
 fear it would fain escape and like you, seaman, it sighs, "What 
 will become of my little ones ?" 
 
 But the black hour passes, day reappears, and I see a small blue 
 point in the heaven. Happy and serene region, which has rested in 
 peace far above the hurricane ! In that blue point, and at an elevation 
 of ten thousand feet, royally floats a little bird with enormous pens. 
 A gull ? No ; its wings are black. An eagle ? No ; the bird is too 
 small. 
 
 It is the little ocean-eagle, first and chief of the winged race, the 
 daring navigator who never furls his sails, the lord of the tempest, 
 the scorner of all peril the man-of-war or frigate-bird. 
 
 We have reached the culminating point of the series commenced 
 by the wingless bird. Here we have a bird which is virtually nothing 
 more than wings : scarcely any body barely as large as that of the 
 domestic cock while his prodigious pinions are fifteen feet in span. 
 The great problem of flight is solved and overpassed, for the power of 
 flight seems useless. Such a bird, naturally sustained by such sup- 
 ports, need but allow himself to be borne along. The storm bursts ; 
 he mounts to lofty heights, where he finds tranquillity. The poetic
 
 THE FRIGATE BIRD. 105 
 
 metaphor, untrue when applied to any other bird, is no exaggeration 
 when applied to him : literally, he sleeps upon the storm. 
 
 When he chooses to oar his way seriously, all distance vanishes : 
 he breakfasts at the Senegal ; he dines in America. 
 
 Or, if he thinks fit to take more time, and amuse himself en route, 
 he can do so. He may continue his progress through the night 
 indefinitely, certain of reposing himself. Upon what ? On his huge 
 motionless wing, which takes upon itself all the weariness of the 
 voyage ; or on the wind, his slave, which eagerly hastens to 
 cradle him. 
 
 Observe, moreover, that this strange being is gifted with the 
 proud prerogative of fearing nothing in this world. Little, but strong 
 and intrepid, he braves all the tyrants of the air. He can despise, if 
 need be, the pygargue and the condor : those huge unwieldy crea- 
 tures will with great difficulty have put themselves in motion when 
 he shall have already achieved a distance of ten leagues. 
 
 Oh, it is then that envy seizes us, when, amid the glowing azure 
 of the Tropics, at incredible altitudes, almost imperceptible in the dim 
 remoteness, we see him triumphantly sweeping past us this black, 
 solitary bird, alone in the waste of heaven : or, at the most, at a 
 lower elevation, the snow-white sea-swallow crosses his flights in easy 
 grace ! 
 
 Why dost not thou take me upon thy pens, O king of the air. 
 /thou fearless and unwearied master of space, whose wondrously swift 
 flight annihilates time ? Who more than thou is raised above the 
 mean fatalities of existence ? 
 
 One thing, however, has astonished me : that, when contemplated 
 from near at hand, the first of the winged kingdom should have 
 nothing of that serenity which a free life promises. His eye is 
 cruelly hard, severe, mobile, unquiet. His vexed attitude is that of 
 some unhappy sentinel doomed, under pain of death, to keep watch 
 over the infinity of ocean. He visibly exerts himself to see afar. 
 And if his vision does not avail him, the doom is on his dark counte- 
 nance; nature condemns him, he dies.
 
 106 
 
 TRIUMPH OF THE WING. 
 
 On looking at him closely, you perceive that lie has no feet. Or at 
 all events, feet which being palmate and exceedingly short, can neither 
 walk nor perch. With a formidable beak, he has not the talons of a 
 true eagle of the sea. A pseudo-eagle, and superior to the true in 
 his daring as in his powers of flight, he has not, however, his 
 strength, his invincible grasp. He strikes and slays : can he seize ? 
 / Thence arises his life of uncertainty and hazard the life of a 
 corsair and a pirate rather than of a mariner and the fixed inquiry 
 
 ever legible on his countenance: "Shall I feed? Shall I have 
 wherewithal to nourish my little ones this evening?" 
 
 The immense and superb apparatus of his wings becomes on land
 
 THE FRIGATE BIRD. 107 
 
 a danger and an embarrassment. To raise himself he needs a strong 
 wind and a lofty station, a promontory, a rock. Surprised on a 
 sandy level, on the banks, the low reefs where he sometimes halts, 
 the frigate-bird is defenceless; in vain he threatens, he strikes, for a 
 blow from a stick will overcome him. 
 
 At sea, those vast wings, of such admirable utility in ascent, are 
 ill-fitted for skimming the surface of the water. When wetted, they 
 may over-weight and sink him. And thereupon, woe to the bird ! 
 He belongs to the fishes, he nourishes the mean tribes on which he 
 had relied for his own behoof; the game eats the hunter, the ensnarer 
 is ensnared. 
 
 And yet, what shall he do ? His food lies in the waters. He is 
 ever compelled to draw near them, to return to them, to skim in- 
 cessantly the hateful and prolific sea which threatens to engulf him. 
 
 Thus, then, this being so well-armed, winged, superior to all 
 others in power of flight and vision as in daring, leads but a trem- 
 bling and precarious life. He would die of hunger had he not the 
 industry to create for himself a purveyor, whom he cheats of his food. 
 His ignoble resource, alas, is to attack a dull and timorous bird, the 
 noddy, famous as a fisher. The frigate-bird, which is of no larger 
 dimensions, pursues him, strikes him on the neck with his beak, and 
 constrains him to yield up his prey. All these incidents transpire in 
 the air; before the fish can fall, he catches it on its passage. 
 
 If this resource fail, he does not shrink from attacking man. 
 " On landing at Ascension Island," says a traveller, " we were assailed 
 by some frigate-birds. One tried to snatch a fish out of my very 
 hand. Others alighted on the copper where the meat was being 
 cooked to carry it off, without taking any notice of the sailors who 
 were around it." 
 
 Dampier saw some of these birds, sick, aged, or crippled, perched 
 upon the rocks which seemed their sanatorium, levying contributions 
 upon the young noddies, their vassals, and nourishing themselves on 
 the results of their fishing. But in the vigour of their prime they do 
 not rest on earth; living like the clouds, constantly floating on their
 
 108 TRIUMPH OF THE WING. 
 
 vast wings from one world to the other, patiently awaiting their 
 fortune, and piercing the infinite heaven the infinite waters with 
 implacable glance. 
 
 The lord of the winged race is he who does not rest. The chief 
 of navigators is he who never reaches his bourne. Earth and sea are 
 almost equally prohibited to him. He is for ever banished. 
 
 Let us envy nothing. No existence is really free here below, no 
 career is sufficiently extensive, no power of flight sufficiently great, 
 no wing can satisfy. The most powerful is but a temporary sub- 
 stitute. The soul waits, demands, and hopes for others : 
 
 " Wings to soar above life '. 
 /""Wings to soar beyond death! '' 
 
 [XoTE. The Fngate-Bird. This interesting bird (Tachypetes) is allied lo the cormor- 
 ants, but differs from them in the possession of a forked tail, short feet, a curved beak, 
 and extraordinary spread of wing. Its plumage is coloured of a rich purple black, but the 
 beak is varied with vermilion red, and the throat with patches of white. It is an inhabi- 
 tant of the Tropics, where it lives a predatory life, forcing the gannet and the gull to dis- 
 gorge their prey, and retiring to breed in lonely uninhabited islands. 
 
 Of its voracity, Dr. Chamberlaine gives a curious illustration. When the fishermen are 
 pursuing their vocation on the sand-banks in Kingston Harbour, Jamaica, the gulls, 
 pelicans, and other sea-birds gather round in swarms, and as the loaded net is hauled 
 ashore, pounce upon their struggling prey. But no sooner does this take place, than the 
 frigate-birds attack them with such furious violence that they are glad to surrender their 
 hard-earned booty to antagonists so formidable. 
 
 The lightness of his body, his short tarsi, his enormous spread of wing, together with 
 his long, slender, and forked tail, all combine to give this bird a superiority over his tribe, 
 not only in length and swiftness of flight, but also in the capability of maintaining himsell 
 on extended pinions in his aerial realm, where, at times, he will soar so high that his figure 
 can scarce be discerned by the spectator in this nether world. Translator.]
 
 THE SHORES.
 
 THE SHORES. 
 DECAY OF CERTAIN SPECIES. 
 
 I HAVE frequently observed, in my days of sad- 
 ness, a being sadder still, which Melancholy might 
 have chosen for its symbol: I mean, the Dreamer of 
 the Marshes, the meditative bird that, in all seasons, 
 standing solitarily before the dull waters, seems, 
 along with his image, to plunge in their mirror his 
 monotonous thought. 
 
 His noble ebon-black crest, his pearl-gray mantle this 
 semi-royal mourning contrasts with his puny body and 
 transparent leanness. "When flying, the poor heron dis- 
 plays but a couple of wings; low as is the elevation to 
 which he rises, there is no longer any question of his body he 
 becomes invisible. An animal truly aerial, to bear so light a frame,
 
 112 
 
 THE SHORES. 
 
 the heron has enough, nay, he has a foot too many; he folds under his 
 
 wing the other; and nearly always his lame figure is thus defined 
 
 against the sky in a fantastical hieroglyph. 
 
 Whoever has lived in history, in the study of fallen races and 
 
 empires, is tempted to see herein 
 an image of decay. Yonder bird 
 is a great ruined lord, a de- 
 throned king, or I am much mis- 
 taken. No creature issues from 
 Nature's hands in so miserable a 
 condition. Therefore I ventured 
 to interrogate this dreamer, and I 
 said to him from a distance the 
 following words, which his most 
 delicate hearing caught exactly: 
 " My fisher-friend, wouldst thou 
 oblige me by explaining (without 
 abandoning thy present position), 
 why, always so melancholy, thou 
 seemest doubly melancholy to-day? 
 Hath thy prey failed thee ? Have 
 the too subtle fish deceived thine 
 eyes ? Does the mocking frog defy 
 thee from the bottom of the 
 waters ?" 
 
 " No ; neither fish nor frogs 
 have made sport of the heron. But 
 ' the heron laughs at himself, despises 
 himself, when he remembers the 
 
 glory of his noble race, and the bird of the olden times. 
 
 "Thou wouldst know wherefore I dream? Ask the Indian chief 
 
 of the Cherokees, or the lowas, why for long days he leans his head 
 
 upon his hand, marking on the tree before him an object which was 
 
 never there ?
 
 DECAY OF CERTAIN SPECIES. 113 
 
 " The earth was our empire, the realm of the aquatic birds in the 
 Transitional age when, young and fresh, she emerged from the waters. 
 An era of strife, of battle, but of abundant subsistence. Not a heron 
 then but earned his life. There was need neither to attack nor 
 pursue; the prey hunted the hunter; it whistled, or it croaked on 
 every side. Millions of creatures of undefined natures, bird-frogs, 
 winged fish, infested the uncertain limits of the two elements. What 
 would ye have done, ye feeble mortals, the latest-born of the world? 
 The Bird prepared earth for ye. Colossal encounters were waged 
 against the enormous monster-births of the ooze; the son of air, the 
 bird, attaining the dimensions of an Anak, shrunk not from battle 
 with the giant. If your ungrateful histories have not traced these 
 events, God's grand record narrates them in the depths of the earth, 
 where she deposits the conquered and the conquerors, the monsters 
 exterminated by us, and we who have exterminated them. 
 
 " Your lying myths make us contemporaries of a human 
 Hercules. What had his club availed against the plesiosaurus? Who 
 would have met, face to face, the horrible leviathan? The capacity of 
 flight was absolutely needed, the strong intrepid wing which from the 
 loftiest height bore downwards the Herculean bird, the epiornis, an 
 eagle twenty feet in stature, and fifty feet from wing-tip to wing-tip, 
 the implacable hunter, who, lord of three elements, in the air, in the 
 water, and in the deep slime, pursued the dragon with ceaseless 
 hostility. 
 
 "Man had perished a hundred times. Through our agency man 
 became possible on a pacified earth. But who will be astonished 
 that these awful wars, which lasted for myriads of years, spent the 
 conquerors, wearied the winged Hercules, transformed him into a 
 feeble Perseus, a pale and lustreless memory of our heroic 
 times ? 
 
 "Lowered, in strength and stature, but not in heart, famished by 
 our very victory, by the disappearance of evil races, by the division 
 of the elements which held our prey concealed at the bottom of the 
 waters, we in our turn were hunted upon the earth, in the forests
 
 114 THE SHOKES. 
 
 and the marsh, by those new-comers who, without our help, had never 
 been. The malice and dexterity of the woodman were fatal to our 
 nests. Like a coward, in the thick of the branches which impede 
 flight and shackle combat, he laid his hand on our young ones. A 
 new war, and a less fortunate one, this, which Homer calls the War 
 of the Pigmies and the Cranes. The lofty intelligence of the cranes, 
 their truly military tactics, have not prevented man their enemy 
 from gaining the advantage by a thousand execrable arts. Time was 
 on his side, and earth, and nature: she moves forward, drying up 
 the earth, exhausting the marshes, narrowing the undefined region 
 where we reigned. It will be with us, in the end, as with the 
 beaver. Many species perish: another centuiy, perhaps, and the 
 heron will have lived." 
 
 The story is too true. Except those species which have taken 
 their side, have abandoned earth, have given themselves up frankly 
 and unreservedly to the liquid element; except the divers, the cor- 
 morant, the wise pelican, and a few others, the aquatic tribes seem in 
 a state of decay. Restlessness and sobriety maintain them still. It 
 is this persistent anxiety which has gifted the pelican with a peculiar 
 organ, hollowing for her under her distended beak a movable 
 reservoir, a living sign of economy and of attentive foresight. 
 
 Others, skilful voyagers, like the swan, live by constantly 
 changing their abode. But the swan herself, which, though un- 
 eatable, is trained by man on account of her beauty and her grace 
 the swan, formerly so common in Italy, and to which Virgil so con- 
 stantly refers, is now very rare there. In vain the traveller would 
 seek for those snow-white flotillas which covered with their sails the 
 waters of the Mincio, the marshes of Mantua ; which mourned for 
 Phaeton in despite of his sisters, or in their sublime flight, pursuing 
 the stars with harmonious song, repeated to them the name of 
 Varus.* 
 
 That song, of which all antiquity speaks, is it a fable? These 
 organs of singing, which are so largely developed in the swan, were 
 * See Virgil, " Georgics."
 
 DECAY OF CERTAIN SPECIES. 
 
 115 
 
 they always useless? Did they never disport themselves in happy 
 freedom when enjoying a more genial atmosphere, and spending the 
 greater portion of the year in the mild climates of Greece and Italy? 
 One might be tempted to believe it. The swan, driven back to the 
 north, where his amours secure mystery and repose, has sacrificed his 
 song, has gained the accent of barbarism, or become voiceless. The 
 muse is dead; the bird has survived. 
 
 Gregarious, disciplined, full of tactic and resources, the crane, the 
 superior type of intelligence among these species, might contrive, one 
 would fancy, to prosper, and to maintain herself everywhere in her 
 ancient royalty. She has lost two kingdoms, however : France, 
 where she now only appears as a bird of passage; England, where she 
 rarely ventures to deposit her eggs. 
 
 The heron, in the days of Aristotle, was full of industry and 
 sagacity. The ancients consulted him in reference to fine weather or 
 tempest, as one of 'the gravest of augurs. Fallen in the mediaeval 
 days, but preserving his beauty, his heavenward flight, he was still a
 
 116 
 
 THE SHORES. 
 
 prince, a feudal bird; kings esteemed it kingly sport to hunt him, and 
 
 considered him a meet quarry for the 
 noble falcon. And so keenly was 
 he hunted, that already, in the reign 
 of Francis I., he had grown rare : 
 that monarch lodged him near his 
 own palace at Fontainebleau, and 
 established there some heronries. 
 Two or three centuries pass, and 
 Buffon can still believe that there 
 are no provinces in France where 
 heronries could not be found. In 
 our own days, Toussenel knows of 
 but one in all the country at least 
 in its northern districts, in Cham- 
 pagne : a wood between Rheims and 
 Epernay conceals the last asylum 
 where the poor lonely bird still dares 
 to hide his loves. 
 
 Lonely ! In that lies his con- 
 demnation. Less gregarious than the 
 crane, less domesticated than the 
 stork, he seems to have grown harsh 
 towards his progeny, towards the 
 mate whom he loves. His brief 
 rare fits of desire scarcely beguile 
 him for a day from his melancholy. 
 He cares little for life. In captivity 
 he often refuses nourishment, and 
 pines away without complaint and 
 without regret. 
 
 __ The aquatic birds, creatures of 
 
 great experience, for the most part 
 
 reflective and learned in two elements, were, at their palmiest epoch,
 
 DECAY OF CERTAIN SPECIES. 117 
 
 more advanced than many others. They well deserved the care of 
 man. All of them possessed merits of diverse originality. The social 
 instinct of the cranes, and their various imitative talent, rendered 
 them amusing and agreeable. The joviality of the pelican, and his 
 joyous humour; the tenderness of the goose, and his strong faculty of 
 attachment; and, finally, the good disposition of the storks, their piety 
 towards their aged parents, confirmed by so many witnesses, formed 
 between this world and our own firm ties of sympathy, which human 
 levity ought not barbarously to have rent asunder. 
 
 
 [NOTE. Heronries in England. The heron, though rare in England, is certainly not so 
 scarce as he seems to he in France, perhaps because it is against the laws of sport to hunt 
 him. In some districts the man who shot a heron would be regarded with as much scora 
 as if he had killed a fox. He is a very rapacious bird, and it is asserted that, on an average, 
 he will destroy daily half a hundred small roach and dace. 
 
 There is a fine heronry at Cobham, near Gravesend, in Kent, the seat of the Earl of 
 Parnley. Another, in Great Sowdens Wood, on the Rye road, one mile from Udimere, in 
 Sussex, contains fully four hundred nest-*. That at Parham, the Hon. R. Curzon's 
 beautiful seat has quite a history.
 
 118 
 
 THE SHORES. 
 
 The original birds were brought from Wales to Penshurst, by the Earl of Leicester's 
 steward, in the reign of James I. Thence, some two centuries later, they migrated to 
 Michel Grove, at Angmering. It may be about twenty years since that the Duke of Norfolk 
 caused two or three trees to be felled near their retreat, and the offended birds immediately 
 commenced their migrations, and, in the course of three seasons, all assembled in Parham 
 Woods. Here, in the thick shelter of pine and spruce-fir, are now about fifty-seven nests. 
 (See Kuox's " Ornithological Rambles in Kent and Sussex.") Translator.]
 
 THE HERONRIES OF
 
 THE HERONRIES OF AMERICA 
 
 WILSON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 
 
 THE decay of the heron is less perceptible in 
 # America. He is not so frequently hunted. The solitudes 
 are of vaster dimensions. He can still find, among his 
 beloved marshes, gloomy and almost impenetrable forests. 
 In these shadowy recesses he is more gregarious : ten or 
 fifteen " domestic exiles " establish themselves in the 
 same locality, or at but a short distance from each 
 other. The complete obscurity which the huge cedars 
 throw over the livid waters re-assures and rejoices them. 
 Towards the summit of these trees they build with sticks a 
 wide platform, which they cover with small branches : this is 
 the residence of the family, and the shelter of their loves; there, 
 the eggs are laid and hatched in quiet, the young are taught to fly, and 
 all those paternal lessons are given which will perfect the young fisher. 
 They have little cause to fear the intrusion of man into their peaceful
 
 122 THE HEKONRIES OF AMERICA. 
 
 retreats : these they find near the sea-shore, especially in North and 
 South Carolina, in low swampy levels, the haunt of yellow fever. 
 Such morasses an ancient arm of the sea or a river, an old swamp 
 left behind in the gradual recession of the waters extend sometimes 
 over a length of five or six miles, and a breadth of one mile. The 
 entry is not very inviting : a barrier of trees confronts you, their 
 trunks perfectly upright and stripped of branches, fifty or sixty feet 
 high, and bare to the very summit, where they mingle and bring to- 
 gether their leafy arches of sombre green, so as to shed upon the 
 waters an ominous twilight. What waters ! A seething mass of 
 leaves and debris, where the old stems rise pell-mell one upon another ; 
 ythe whole of a muddy yellow colour, coated on the surface with a 
 green frothy moss. Advance, and the seemingly firm expanse is a 
 quicksand, into which you plunge. A laurel-tree at each step inter- 
 cepts you ; you cannot pass without a painful straggle with their 
 branches, with wrecks of trees, with laurels constantly springing up 
 afresh. Rare gleams of light shoot athwart the darkness, and the 
 silence of death prevails in these terrible regions. Except the mel- 
 ancholy notes of two or three small birds, which you catch at intervals, 
 or the hoarse cry of the heron, all is dumb and desolate ; but when 
 the wind rises, from the summit of the trees comes the heron's moans 
 and sighs. If the storm bursts, these great naked cedars, these tall 
 " ammiral's masts," waver and clash together ; the forest roars, cries, 
 groans, and imitates with singular exactness the voices of wolves, and 
 bears, and all the beasts of prey. 
 
 It was not then without astonishment that, about 1805, the heron, 
 thus securely settled, saw a rare face, a man's, roaming under their 
 cedars, and in the open swamp. One man alone was capable of visiting 
 them in their haunts, a patient indefatigable traveller, no less courageous 
 than peaceable the friend and the admirer of birds, Alexander Wilson. 
 
 If these people had been acquainted with their visitor's character, 
 far from feeling terrified at his appearance, they would undoubtedly 
 have gone forth to meet him, and, with clapping of wings and loud 
 cries, have given him an amicable salute, a fraternal ovation.
 
 WILSON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 
 
 123 
 
 In those terrible years when 
 man waged against man the most 
 destructive war that had ever 
 been known, there lived in Scot- 
 land a man of peace. A poor 
 Paisley weaver,* in his damp 
 dull lodging, he dreamed of 
 nature, of the infinite liberty of 
 the woods, and, above all, of 
 the winged life. A cripple, and 
 condemned to inactivity, his very 
 bondage inspired him with an 
 ecstatic love of light and flight. 
 If he did not take to himself 
 wings, it was because that sublime 
 
 gift is, upon earth, only the dream and hope of another world. 
 
 * Alexander Wilson, the eminent ornithologist, was born al Paisley in 1766. He was 
 bred a weaver, but emigrating to the United States in 1794, found means to pursue the 
 studies for which he had a natural bias, and in which he earned an enduring reputation. 
 The first volume of his " American Ornithology " was published in 1808. He died of 
 dysentery, in August 1813. Translator.
 
 124 THE HERONRIES OF AMERICA. 
 
 At first he attempted to gratify his love of birds by the 
 purchase of those illustrated works which pretend to represent them. 
 Clumsy caricatures, which convey but a ridiculous idea of their 
 form, and none at all of their movement ; and what is the bird 
 deprived of grace and motion ? These did not suffice. He took a 
 decisive resolution : to abandon everything, his trade, his countiy. 
 A new Robinson Crusoe, he was willing, by a voluntary ship- 
 wreck, to exile himself to the solitudes of America ; where he 
 might see with his own eyes, observe, describe, and paint. He 
 then remembered one little fact : that he neither knew how 
 to draw, to paint, or to write. But this strong and patient man, 
 whom no difficulties could discourage, soon learned to write, and 
 to write an excellent style. A good writer, a minutely accurate 
 artist, with a delicate and certain hand, he seemed, under the guid- 
 ance of Nature, his mother and mistress, less to learn than to 
 remember. 
 
 Provided with these weapons, he plunges into the desert, the 
 forest, and the pestiferous savannahs ; becomes the friends of buffaloes 
 and the guest of bears ; lives upon wild fruits, under the splendid 
 ceiling of heaven. Wherever he chances to observe a rare bird, he 
 halts, encamps, and is " at home." "What, indeed, is to there hurry him 
 onward ? He has no house to recall him, and neither wife nor child 
 awaits him. He has a family, it is true : that great family which he 
 observes and describes. And friends, he has them too : those which 
 have not yet learned to mistrust man, and which perch upon his tree, 
 and chatter with him. 
 
 And, O birds, you are right ; you have there a truly loyal friend, 
 who will secure you many others, who will teach men to understand 
 you, being himself as a bird in thought and heart. One day, perhaps, 
 the traveller, penetrating into your solitudes, and seeing some of you 
 fluttering and sparkling in the sun, will be tempted with the hope of 
 spoil, but will bethink himself of Wilson. Why kill the friends of 
 Wilson ? And when this name flashes on his memory, he will lower 
 his gun.
 
 WILSON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 
 
 126 
 
 I do not see, let me add, why we should extend to infinity our 
 massacre of birds, or, at least, of 
 these species which are represented 
 in our museums, or in the museums 
 painted by Wilson, and his disciple 
 Audubon, whose truly royal book, 
 exhibiting botli race, and the egg, 
 the nest, the forest, the very land- 
 scape, is a rivalry with nature. 
 
 These great observers have one 
 speciality which separates them from 
 all others. Their feeling is so deli- 
 cate, so precise, that no generalities 
 could satisfy it ; they must always 
 examine the individual. God, 1 
 think, knows nothing of our classifi- 
 cations : he created such and such a 
 creature, and gives but little heed to 
 the imaginary lines with which we 
 isolate the species. In the same 
 manner, Wilson knew nothing of 
 birds in the mass; but such an in- 
 dividual, of such an age, with such 
 plumage, in such circumstances. He 
 knows it, has seen it, has seen it 
 again and again, and he will tell you 
 what it does, what it eats, how it 
 comports itself, and will relate certain 
 adventures, certain anecdotes of its 
 life. " I knew a woodpecker. I 
 have frequently seen a Baltimore." 
 When he uses these expressions, you 
 may wholly trust yourself to him ; 
 they mean that he has held close relations with them in a species of
 
 126 THE HERONRIES OF AMERICA. 
 
 friendly and family intimacy. Would that we knew the men with 
 whom we transact business as well as Wilson knew the bird qua, 
 or the heron of the Carolinas ! 
 
 It is easily understood, and not difficult to imagine, that when 
 this bird-man returned among men, he met with none that could 
 comprehend him. His peculiarly novel originality, his marvellous 
 / exactness, his unique faculty of individualization (the only means 
 of re-making of re-creating the living being), were the chief obstacles 
 to his success. Neither publishers nor public cared for more than 
 noble, lofty, and vague generalities, in faithful observance of Buffon's 
 precept : To generalize is to ennoble ; therefore, adopt the word 
 " general." 
 
 It required time, and, more than all, it required that this fertile 
 genius should after his death inspire a similar genius, the accurate and 
 patient Audubon, whose colossal work has astonished and subjugated 
 the public, by demonstrating that the true and living in representa- 
 tion of individuality is nobler and more majestic than the forced pro- 
 ducts of the generalizing art. 
 
 Wilson's sweetness of disposition, so unworthily misunderstood, 
 shines forth in his beautiful preface. To some it may appear 
 infantine, but no innocent heart can be otherwise than moved 
 by it. 
 
 " On a visit to a friend, I found that his young son, about eight 
 or nine years of age, who had been brought up in the town, but was 
 then living in the country, had just collected, while wandering in the 
 fields, a fine nosegay of wild-flowers of every hue. He presented it 
 to his mother, with the greatest animation, saying : ' Dear mamma, 
 see what beautiful flowers I have gathered ! Oh, I could pluck a 
 host of others which grow in our woods, and are still more lovely ! 
 Shall I not bring you some more, mamma ? ' She took the nosegay 
 with a smile of tenderness, silently admired the simple and touching 
 beauty of nature, and said to him, ' Yes, my son.' The child started 
 off on the wings of happiness. 
 
 " I saw myself in that child, and was struck with the resemblance
 
 WILSON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 
 
 127 
 
 If my native country receive with gracious indulgence the specimens 
 which I now humbly offer it, if it express a desire that / should bring 
 it some more, my highest ambition will be satisfied. For, as my 
 little friend said, our woods are full of them ; I can gather numerous 
 others which are still more beautiful." (Philadelphia, 1808.) 
 
 -X
 
 THE COMSAT.
 
 VSN* 
 
 \ 
 
 THE COMBAT. 
 THE TROPICAL REGIONS. 
 
 \ 
 
 A IADY of our family, who resided in 
 Louisiana, was nursing her young child. Every 
 nioht her sleep was troubled by the strange 
 sensation of a cold gliding object which sought 
 to draw the milk. from her breast. On one occasion 
 F she felt the same impression, and it aroused her. She 
 sprang up, summoned her attendants; a light was 
 ) brought ; they search every comer, turn over the bed, 
 and It last discover the frightful nursling a serpent of 
 great size and of a dangerous species. The horror which 
 she felt instantly dried up her milk. 
 
 Levafflant relates that at the Cape of Good Hope, 
 'in a circle of friends, and during a quiet conversation, 
 the lady of the house turned pale, and uttered a terrible 
 cry. A serpent had crept up her legs, one of those 
 whose sting is death in a couple of minutes. With 
 . x great difficulty it was killed. 
 
 In India a French soldier, resuming his knapsack which he had 
 placed on the ground, discovered behind it the dangerous black
 
 132 THE COMBAT. 
 
 serpent, the most venomous of his tribe. He was about to cut it in 
 two when a merciful Hindu interposed, obtained its pardon, and took 
 up the serpent. Stung by it, he died immediately. 
 
 Such are the terrors of nature in those formidable climates. But 
 reptiles, now-a-days rare, are not the greatest curse. In all places 
 and at all times it is now the insect. Insects everywhere, and in 
 everything ; they possess an infinity of means for attacking you ; 
 they walk, swim, glide, fly ; they are in the air, and you breathe 
 them. Invisible, they make known their presence by the most 
 painful wounds. Recently, in one of our sea-ports, an official of the 
 customs opened a parcel of papers brought from the colonies a long 
 time previously. A fly furiously darted out of it ; it pursued, it 
 stung him ; two days afterwards he was a corpse. 
 
 The hardiest of men, the buccaneers and filibusters, declared that of 
 all dangers and of all pains they dreaded most the wounds of insects. 
 
 Frequently intangible, invisible, irresistible, they are destruction 
 itself under an unavoidable form. How shall you oppose them when 
 they make war upon you in legions ? Once, at Barbadoes, the in- 
 habitants observed an immense army of great ants, which, impelled 
 by unknown causes, advanced in a serried column and in the same 
 direction against the houses. To kill them was only trouble lost. 
 There were no means of arresting their progress. At last an ingenious 
 mind fortunately suggested that trains of gunpowder should be laid 
 across their route, and set on fire. These volcanoes terrified them, 
 and the torrent of invasion gradually turned aside. 
 
 No mediaeval armoury, with all the strange weapons then made 
 use of; no chirurgical implement factory, with the thousands of 
 dreadful instruments invented by modem art, can be compared with 
 the monstrous armour of Tropical insects their pincers, their nippers, 
 their teeth, their saws, their horns, their augers, all their tools of 
 combat, of death, and of dissection, with which they come armed to the 
 battle, with which they labour, pierce, cut, rend, and finely partition, 
 with skill and dexterity equal to their furious blood-thirstiness. 
 
 Our grandest works may not defy the energetic force of these
 
 THE TKOPICAL REGIONS. 133 
 
 terrible legions. Give them a ship of the line what do I say ? a 
 town to devour, and they charge at it with eager joy. In course 
 of time they have excavated under Valentia, near Caraccas, vast 
 abysses and catacombs ; the city is now literally suspended. A few 
 individuals of this voracious tribe, unfortunately transported to 
 Rochelle, have set to work to eat up the place, and already more 
 than one edifice trembles upon timbers which are only externally 
 sound, and at the core are rotten. 
 
 What would be the fate of a man given up to the insects ? One 
 dares not think of it. An unfortunate wretch, while intoxicated, 
 fell down near a carcass. The insects which were devouring the 
 dead could not distinguish from it the living ; they took possession 
 of his body, entered at every avenue, filled all the natural cavities. 
 It was impossible to save him. He expired in the midst of frightful 
 convulsions. 
 
 In those lands of fire, where the rapidity 'of decomposition renders 
 every corpse dangerous, where all death threatens life, these terrible 
 accelerators of the disappearance of animal bodies multiply ad in- 
 finitum. A corpse scarcely touches the earth before it is seized, 
 attacked, disorganized, dissected. Only the bones are left. Nature, 
 endangered by her own fecundity, invites, stimulates, encourages 
 them by the heat, by the irritation of a world of spices and acrid 
 substances. She makes them furious hunters, insatiable gluttons. 
 The tiger and the lion, compared with the vulture, are mild, sober, 
 moderate creatures ; but what is the vulture in the presence of an 
 insect which, in four-and-twenty hours, consumes thrice its own 
 weight ? 
 
 Greece personified nature under the calm and noble image of 
 Cybele chariot-drawn by lions. India dreams of her god Siva, the 
 divinity of life and death, who incessantly winks his eye, never 
 gazing fixedly, because his single glance would reduce all the worlds 
 to dust. How weak these fancies of men in the presence of the 
 reality ! What avail their fictions before the burning centre where, 
 by atoms or by seconds, life dies, is born, blazes, scintillates ?
 
 134 
 
 THE COMBAT. 
 
 Who could sustain the thunderous flash without reeling and without 
 terror ? 
 
 Just, indeed, and legitimate, is the 
 traveller's hesitancy at the entrance of 
 these fearful forests where Tropical Nature, 
 under forms oftentimes of great beauty, 
 wages her keenest strife. It is the place 
 to pause when one knows that the most 
 formidable defence of the Spanish fortresses 
 is found in a simple grove of cactus, which, 
 planted around them, speedily swarms with 
 serpents. You frequently detect there a 
 strong odour of musk, a nauseous, a sinister 
 odour. It tells you that you are treading 
 on the very dust of the dead : the wreck 
 of animals which possessed that peculiar 
 savour, tiger-cats, and crocodiles, vultures, 
 vipers, and rattle-snakes. 
 
 The peril is greatest, perhaps, in those 
 virgin-forests where everything is eloquent 
 f lif e > wner e nature's seething crucible 
 eternally boils and bubbles. 
 
 Here and there their living shadows 
 thicken with a threefold canopy the 
 colossal trees, the entwining and interlacing 
 lianas, and herbs of thirty feet high with 
 magnificent leaves. At intervals, these 
 herbs sink into the ancient primeval slime ; 
 while, at the height of a hundred feet, the 
 lofty and puissant flowers break through 
 the deep night to display themselves in 
 the burning sun. 
 
 In the clearances the narrow alleys where his rays penetrate 
 there is a scintillation, an eternal murmuring, of beetles, butterflies,
 
 THE TROPICAL REGIONS. 135 
 
 humming-birds, and fly-catchers gems animated and mobile, which 
 incessantly flutter to and fro. At night a far more astonishing 
 scene ! begins the fairylike illumination of shining fire-flies, which, 
 by thousands of millions, weave the most fantastic arabesques, dazzling 
 fantasias of light, magical scrolls of fire. 
 
 With all this splendour there lurks in the lower levels an obscure 
 race, a hideous and foul world of caymans, of water-serpents. To the 
 trunks of enormous trees the fanciful orchids, the well-loved daughters 
 of fever, the children of a miasmatic atmosphere, quaint vegetable 
 butterflies, suspend themselves in seeming flight. In these murderous 
 solitudes they take their delight, and bathe in the putrid swamps, 
 drink of the death which inspires them with vitality, and, by the 
 caprice of their unheard-of colours, make sport of the intoxication of 
 nature. 
 
 Do not yield -defend yourself let not the fatal charm bow down 
 your sinking head. Awake ! arouse ! under a hundred forms the 
 danger surrounds you. Yellow fever lurks beneath these flowers, 
 and the black vomito ; reptiles trail at your feet. If you gave way 
 /to fatigue, a noiseless army of implacable anatomists would take 
 possession of you, and with a million lancets convert all your 
 tissues into an admirable bit of lacework, a gauze veil, a breath, 
 nothingness. 
 
 To this all-absorbing abyss of devouring death, of famished life, 
 what does God oppose to re-assure us ? Another abyss, not less 
 famished, thirsty of life, but less implacable to man. I see the Bird, 
 and I breathe ! 
 
 What ! is it in you, ye living flowers, ye winged topazes and 
 sapphires, that I shall find my safety ? Your saving vehemence it is, 
 excited to the purification of this superabundant and furious fecundity, 
 that alone renders practicable the entrance to this dangerous realm 
 of faery. Were you absent, jealous Nature would perform her mys- 
 terious labour of solitary fermentation, and not even the most daring 
 savant would venture upon observing her. Who am I here ? And 
 how shall I defend myself ? What power would be sufficient ? The
 
 136 
 
 THE COMBAT. 
 
 elephant, the ancient mammoth, would perish defenceless against a 
 million of deadly darts. Who will brave them ? The eagle or the 
 condor ? No ; a people far more mighty the intrepid and the in- 
 numerable legion of fly-catchers. 
 
 Humming-birds, colibris, and their brothers of every hue, live 
 with impunity in these gleaming solitudes where danger lurks 
 on every side, among the most venomous insects, and upon those 
 mournful plants whose very shade kills. One of them (crested, 
 green and blue), in the Antilles, suspends his nest to the most 
 terrible and fatal of trees, to the spectre whose fatal glance seems to 
 freeze your blood for ever, to the deadly manchineal. 
 
 Wonder of wonders ! It ia this parroquet which boldly crops the 
 fruits of the fearful tree, feeds upon them, assumes their livery, and 
 appears, from its sinister green, to draw the metallic lustre of its 
 triumphant wings. 
 
 Life in these winged flames, the humming-bird and the colibri, 
 is so glowing, so intense, that it dares every poison. They beat their 
 wings with such swiftness that the eye cannot count the pulsations ; 
 yet, meanwhile, the bird seems motionless completely inert and inactive.
 
 THE TROPICAL REGIONS. 137 
 
 He maintains a continual cry of hour ! hour ! until, with head bent, 
 he plunges the dagger of his beak to the bottom of the flowers, 
 exhausting their sweets and the tiny insects among them ; all, 
 too, with a motion so rapid that nothing can be compared to it a 
 sharp, choleric, extremely impatient motion, sometimes transported by 
 fury against what? against a great bird, which he pursues and 
 hunts to the death ; against an already rifled blossom, which he cannot 
 forgive for not having waited for him. He rends it, devastates it, 
 and scatters abroad its petals. 
 
 Leaves, as we know, absorb the poisons in the atmosphere ; 
 flowers exhale them. These birds live upon flowers, upon these 
 pungent flowers, on their sharp and burning juices, in a word, on 
 poisons. From their acids they seem to derive their sharp ciy 
 and the everlasting agitation of their angry movements. These 
 contribute, and perhaps much more directly than light, to enrich 
 them with those strange reflects which set one thinking of steel, 
 gold, precious stones, rather than of plumage or blossoms. 
 
 The contrast between them and man is violent. The latter, 
 throughout these regions, perishes or decays. Europeans who, on 
 the borders of these forests, attempt the cultivation of the cacao 
 and other colonial products, quickly succumb. The natives languish, 
 enfeebled and attenuated. That part of earth where man sinks 
 nearest the level of the beast is the scene of triumph of the bird, 
 where his extraordinary pomp of attire, luxurious and superabundant, 
 lias justly won for him the name of bird of paradise. 
 
 It matters not ! Whatever their plumage, their hues, their 
 forms, this great winged populace, the conqueror and devoui-er of 
 insects, and, in its stronger species, the eager hunter of reptiles, sweeps 
 over all the land as man's pioneer, purifying and making ready his 
 abode. They swim intrepidly on this vast sea of death this hissing, 
 croaking, crawling sea on the terrible miasmatic vapours, inhaling 
 and defying them. 
 
 It is thus that the great sanitary work, the time-old combat of 
 
 the bird against the inferior tribes which might long render the 
 
 9 A
 
 138 
 
 THE COMBAT. 
 
 world uninhabitable by man, is continued throughout 
 the earth. Quadrupeds, and even man, take in it 
 but a feeble part. It is ever the war of the winged 
 Hercules. 
 
 To him, indeed, inhabited regions owe all their 
 security. In the furthest Africa, at the Cape, the 
 good serpent-eater defends man against the reptiles. 
 Peaceable in disposition and gentle in aspect, he seems 
 to engage without passion in his dangerous encounters. 
 The gigantic jabiru does not labour less in the 
 deserts of Guiana, where man as yet ventures not 
 to live. Their perilous savannahs, alternately inun- 
 dated and parched, a dubious ocean teeming in the 
 \ \u t sunshine with a horrible population of monsters as 
 
 \ CoT ye ^ unknown, possess, as their superior inhabitant, 
 
 their intrepid scavenger, a noble bird of battle, 
 retaining some relics of the ancient weapons with 
 which the primeval birds were very probably pro- 
 
 i u^ 
 
 vided in their struggle against the dragon. These are 
 
 a horn on the head, and a spur on each of the wings. 
 
 With the first it stirs up, excites, and rouses out of the mud its 
 
 enemy. The others serve as a guard and defence : the reptile
 
 THE TROPICAL REGIONS. 
 
 139 
 
 ;i 
 
 which hugs and folds it in its embrace, at the 
 same time plunges into its own body these keen 
 darts, and by its constriction, its own actual 
 exertions, is poniarded. 
 
 This brave and beautiful bird, last-born of 
 the ancient worlds and a surviving witness to forgotten 
 encounters, which is born, lives, and dies in the 
 slime, in the primitive cloaca, has no stain nevertheless 
 of his unclean cradle. I know not what moral instinct 
 raises and supports him above it. His grand and 
 formidable voice, which sways the desert, announces from 
 afar the gravity and dignified heroism of the noble and 
 haughty purifier. The kamichi (Palamedda cornuta), 
 as he is called, is rare ; he forms a genus of himself, 
 a species which is not divided. 
 
 Despising the ignoble promiscuousness of the low 
 world in which he lives, he lives alone, with but one 
 mate. Undoubtedly, in his career of war, his mate is 
 also a companion-in-arms. They love, they fight to- 
 gether ; they follow the same destiny. Theirs is that 
 soldierly marriage of which Tacitus speaks : " Sic vivendum, sic 
 pereundum," "To life, to death." When this tender com- 
 
 * , * , t * ' 
 
 m 
 
 '
 
 140 
 
 THE COMBAT. 
 
 paiiionship, this consoling succour, fails the kamichi, he disdains to 
 /protract his existence; he rejoins the loved one which he cannot
 
 :
 
 
 PURIFICATION. 
 
 IN the morning not at the first blush of dawn, 
 but when the sun already mounts the horizon and 
 at the very moment when the cocoa-nut tree unfolds 
 its leaves, the urubus (or little vultures), perched in 
 knots of forty or fifty upon its branches, open their 
 brilliant ruby eyes. The toils of the day demand 
 them. In indolent Africa a hundred villages invoke 
 them ; in drowsy America, south of Panama or 
 Caraccas, they, swiftest of cleansers, must sweep out 
 and purify the town before the Spaniard rises, before 
 the potent sun has stirred the carcass and the mass 
 
 of rottenness into fermentation. If they failed a single day, the 
 
 country would become a desert. 
 
 When it is evening-time in America when the urubu, his day's 
 
 work ended, replaces himself on the cocoa-nut tree the minarets of
 
 144 
 
 PURIFICATION. 
 
 Asia sparkle in the morning's rays. Not less punctual than their 
 American brothers, vultures, crows, storks, ibises, set out from their 
 balconies on their various missions : some to the fields, to destroy the 
 insect and the serpent ; others, alighting in the streets of Alexandria 
 or Cairo, hasten to accomplish their task of municipal scavengering. 
 Did they but take the briefest holiday the plague would soon be the 
 only inhabitant of the country. 
 
 Thus, in the two hemispheres, the great work of public health is 
 
 performed with solemn and wonderful regularity. If the sun is 
 
 punctual in fertilizing life, these scavengers sworn in and licensed 
 
 '" by nature are no less punctual in withdrawing from his rays the 
 
 shocking spectacle of death. 
 
 Seemingly they are not ignorant of the importance of their func- 
 tions. Approach them, and they will not retreat. When they have 
 received the signal from their comrades the crows, which often precede 
 
 
 them and point out their prey, you will see the vultures descend in a 
 cloud from one knows not whence, as if from heaven ! Naturally
 
 PURIFICATION. 145 
 
 solitary, and without communication mostly silent they flock to 
 the banquet by the hundred, and nothing disturbs them. They 
 quarrel not among themselves, they take no heed of the passer-by. 
 They imperturbably accomplish their functions in a stern kind of 
 gravity ; with decency and propriety ; the corpse disappears, the skin 
 remains. In a moment a frightful mass of putrid fermentation, which 
 man had never dared to draw near, has vanished has re-entered the 
 pure and wholesome current of universal life. 
 
 It is strange that the more useful they are to us, the more odious 
 we find them. We are unwilling to accept them for what they are, 
 to regard them in their true role, as the beneficent cressets of living 
 fire through which nature passes everything that might corrupt the 
 higher life. For this purpose she has provided them with an admir- 
 able apparatus, which receives, destroys, transforms, without ever 
 rejecting, wearying, or even satisfying itself. Let them devour a 
 hippopotamus, and they are still famished. To the gulls (those 
 vultures of the sea) a whale seems but a reasonable morsel ! They 
 will dissect it and clear it away better than the most skilful whalers. 
 As long as aught of it remains they remain ; fire at them, and they 
 intrepidly return to it in the mouth of your guns. Nothing dislodges 
 the vulture on the carcass of a hippopotamus. Levaillant killed one 
 of these birds, which, though mortally wounded, still plucked away 
 scraps of flesh. Was he starving ? Not he ; food was found in his 
 stomach weighing six pounds ! 
 
 This is automatic gluttony, rather than ferocity. If their aspect is 
 sad and sombre, nature has favoured them for the most part with a 
 delicate and feminine ornament, the soft white down about their 
 neck. 
 
 Standing before them, you feel yourself in the presence of the 
 
 /ministers of death ; but of death tranquil and natural, and not of 
 
 murder. Like the elements, they are serious, grave, inaccusable, at 
 
 . bottom innocent rather, let us say, deserving. Though gifted with 
 
 a vital force which resumes, subdues, absorbs everything, they are 
 
 subject, more than any other beings, to general influences ; are swayed 
 
 10
 
 146 PURIFICATION. 
 
 by the conditions of atmosphere and temperature ; essentially hygro- 
 S metrical, they are living barometers. The morning's humidity 
 burdens their heavy wings ; the weakest prey at that hour might 
 pass with impunity before them. So great is their subjection to ex- 
 ternal nature, that the American species, perched in uniform ranks on 
 the cocoa-nut branches, follow, as we have said, the exact hour when 
 the leaves fold up, retire to rest long before evening, and only awake 
 when the sun, already high above the horizon, re-opens the leaves of 
 the tree and their white, heavy eyelids. 
 
 These admirable agents of that beneficent chemistry which preserves 
 and balances life here below, labour for us in a thousand places where 
 we ourselves may never penetrate. We clearly discern their presence 
 and their services in our towns ; but no one can measure the full 
 extent of their benefits in those deserts where every breath of the 
 winds is death. In the fathomless forest, in the deep morasses, under 
 the impure shadow of mangoes and mangroves, where ferment the 
 corpses of two worlds, dashed to and fro by the sea, the great purify- 
 ing army seconds and shortens the action both of the waves and the 
 insects. Woe to the inhabited world, if their mysterious and unknown 
 toil ceased but for an instant ! 
 
 In America these public benefactors are protected by the law. 
 
 Egypt does more for them ; she reveres, she loves them. If the 
 ancient worship no longer exists, they receive from men as kindly an 
 hospitality as in the time of Pharaoh. Ask an Egyptian fellah why 
 he allows himself to be infested and deafened by birds ? why he so 
 patiently endures the insolence of the crow posted on his buffalo's 
 horn or his camel's hump, or gathering on the date-palms in flocks 
 and beating down the fruit ? he will answer nothing. To the bird 
 everything is lawful. Older than the Pyramids, he is the ancient 
 inhabitant of the countiy. Man is there only through his instrument- 
 ality ; he could not exist without the persistent toil of the ibis, the 
 stork, the crow, and the vulture. 
 
 Hence arises an universal sympathy for the animal, an instinctive 
 tenderness for all life, which, more than anything else, makes the
 
 PURIFICATION. 
 
 147 
 
 charin of the East. The West has its peculiar splendours in sun and 
 climate America is not less dazzling ; but the moral attraction of Asia 
 lies in the sentiment of unity which you feel in a world where man 
 is not divorced from nature ; where the primitive alliance remains 
 unbroken ; where the animals are ignorant that they have cause to 
 dread the human species. Laugh at it if you will ; but there is a 
 gentle pleasure in observing this confidence in seeing the birds come 
 at the Brahmin's call to eat from his very hand in watching the apes 
 on the pagoda-roofs sleeping in domestic peace, playing with or Buck- 
 ling their little ones in as much security as in the bosom of their 
 native forests. 
 
 "At Cairo/' remarks a traveller, " the turtle-doves know so well 
 
 K 
 
 they are under the protection of the public, that they live in the 
 midst of the very clamour of the city. Every day I see them cooing
 
 148 PURIFICATION. 
 
 on my window-shutters, in a very narrow street, at the entrance of a 
 noisy bazaar, and at the busiest moment of the year, a little before 
 the Ramadan, when the ceremonies of marriage fill the city day and 
 night with uproar and tumult. The level roofs of the houses, the 
 usual promenade of the prisoners of the harem and their slaves, are 
 in like manner haunted by a crowd of birds. The eagles sleep in 
 confidence on the balconies of the minarets." 
 
 Conquerors have never failed to turn into derision this gentleness, 
 this tenderness for animated nature. The Persians, the Romans in 
 Egypt, our Europeans in India, the French in Algeria, have often 
 outraged and stricken these innocent brothers of man, the object of his 
 ancient reverence. A Cambyses slew the sacred cow ; a Roman the 
 ibis or cat which destroyed unclean reptiles. But what means the 
 
 / cow ? The fecundity of the country. And the ibis ? Its salubrity. 
 Destroy these animals, and the country is no longer habitable. That 
 which has saved India and Egypt through so many misfortunes, and 
 preserved their fertility, is neither the Nile nor the Ganges ; it is 
 
 ' respect for animal life, the mildness and the gentle heart of man. 
 
 Profound in meaning was the speech of the priest of Sai's to the 
 Greek Herodotus : "You shall be children ever." 
 
 "We shall always be so we, men of the West subtle and graceful 
 reasoners, so long as we shall not have comprehended, with a simple 
 and more exhaustive view, the reason of things. To be a child is to 
 seize life only by partial glimpses. To be a man is to be fully con- 
 
 Xscious of all its harmonious unity. The child disports himself, shatters, 
 and spurns ; he finds his happiness in undoing. And science in its 
 childhood does the same ; it cannot study unless it kills ; the sole use 
 which it makes of a living miracle is, in the first place, to dissect it. 
 None of us carry into our scientific pursuits that tender reverence for 
 life which nature rewards by unveiling to us her mysteries. 
 
 Enter the catacombs, where, to employ our haughty language, the 
 rude monuments sleep of a barbarous superstition ; visit the treasure- 
 stores of India and Egypt ; at each step you meet with naive but not 
 the less profound intuitions of the essential mystery of life and death.
 
 PURIFICATION. 149 
 
 Do not let the form deceive you ; do not look upon this as an arti- 
 ficial work, fabricated by a priestly hand. Under the strange com- 
 plexity and burdensome tyranny of the sacerdotal form, I see two 
 sentiments everywhere revealing themselves in a human and pathetic 
 manner : 
 
 The effort to save the loved soul from the shipwreck of death ; 
 
 The tender brotherhood of man and nature, the religious sympathy 
 for the dumb animal as the divine instrument in the protection of 
 human life. 
 
 The instinct of antiquity perceived what observation and science de- 
 clare: that the Bird is the agent of the grand universal transition, and 
 of purification the wholesome accelerator of the interchange of sub- 
 stances. Especially in burning countries, where every delay is a peril, 
 he is, as Egypt said, the barque of safety which receives the dead spoil, 
 and causes it to re-enter the domain of life and the world of purity. 
 
 The fond and grateful Egyptian soul has recognized these benefits, 
 and wishes for no happiness which it cannot share with the animals, 
 its benefactors. It does not desire to be saved alone. It endeavours 
 to associate them in its immortality. It wills that the sacred bird 
 accompany it to the sombre realm, as if to bear it on its wings.
 
 
 BEftf H.
 
 DEATH. 
 
 BIRDS OF PREY. (THE RAPTORES). 
 
 IT was one of my saddest hours when, seeking in nature 
 a refuge from the thoughts of the age, I for the first time 
 < encountered the head of the viper. This occurred in a 
 valuable museum of anatomical imitations. The head, 
 marvellously imitated and enormously enlarged, so as to remind one 
 of the tiger's and the jaguar's, exposed in its horrible form a some- 
 thing still more horrible. You seized at once the delicate, infinite, 
 fearfully prescient precautions by which the deadly machine is so
 
 154 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 potently armed. Not only is it provided with numerous keen-edged 
 teeth; not only are these teeth supplied with an ingenious reservoir 
 of poison which slays immediately; but their extreme fineness, which 
 renders them liable to fracture, is compensated by an advantage that 
 perhaps no other animal possesses; namely, a magazine of super- 
 numerary teeth, to supply at need the place of any accidentally 
 broken. Oh, what provision for killing ! What precautions that the 
 victim shall not escape ! What love for this horrible creature ! I 
 stood by it scandalized, if I may so speak, and with a sick soul. 
 Nature, the great mother, by whose side I had taken refuge, shocked 
 me with a maternity so cruelly impartial. 
 
 Gloomily I walked away, bearing on my heart a darker shadow 
 than rested on the day itself, one of the sternest in winter. I had 
 come forth like a child; I returned home like an orphan, feeling the 
 notion of a Providence dying away within me. 
 
 Our impressions are not less painful when we see in our galleries 
 the endless series of birds of prey, prowlers by day and night, 
 frightful masks of birds, phantoms which terrify the day itself. One 
 is powerfully affected by observing their cruel weapons; I do not 
 
 refer to those terrible beaks which kill with a blow, but those talons, 
 those sharpened saws, those instruments of torture which fix the 
 shuddering prey, protract the last keen pangs and the agony of 
 suffering.
 
 BIRDS OF PREY. 155 
 
 All! our globe is a barbarous world, though still in its youth; a 
 world of attempts and rude beginnings, given over to cruel slaveries 
 to night, hunger, death, fear! Death? We can accept it; there 
 is in the soul enough of hope and faith to look upon it as a passage, 
 a stage of initiation, a gate to better worlds. But, alas, was pain so 
 useful as to render it necessary to prodigalize it? I feel it, I 
 see it, I hear it everywhere. Not to hear it, to preserve the 
 thread of ray thoughts, I am forced to stop up my ears. All the 
 activity of my soul would be suspended, my nerves shattered by it ; 
 I should eifect nothing more, I should no longer move forward; my 
 life and powers of production would remain barren, annihilated by 
 pity! 
 
 " And yet is not pain the warning which teaches us to foresee and 
 to anticipate, and by every means in our power to ward off our dissolu- 
 tion ? This cruel school is the stimulant and spur of prudence for all 
 living things a powerful drawing back of the soul upon itself, which 
 otherwise would be enfeebled by happiness, by soft and weakening 
 impressions. 
 
 " May it not be said that happiness has a centrifugal attraction 
 which diffuses us wholly without, detains us, dissipates us, would 
 evaporate and restore us to the elements, if we wholly abandoned 
 ourselves to it ? Pain, on the contrary, if experienced at one point, 
 brings back all to the centre, knits closer, prolongs, ensures and 
 fortifies existence. 
 
 "Pain is in some wise the artist of the world which creates us, 
 fashions us, sculptures us with the fine edge of a pitiless chisel. It 
 limits the overflowing life. And that which remains, stronger and 
 more exquisite, enriched by its very loss, draws thence the gift of a 
 higher being." 
 
 These thoughts of resignation were awakened by one who was 
 herself a sufferer, and whose clear eye discerned, even before I myself 
 did, my troubles and my doubts. 
 
 As the individual, said she again, so is the world. Earth itself has 
 been benefited by Pain. Nature begot her through the violent
 
 156 DEATH. 
 
 action of these ministers of death. Their species, rapidly growing 
 rarer and rarer, are the memorials, the evidences of an anterior stage 
 of the globe in which the inferior life swarmed, while nature laboured 
 to purge the excessive fecundity. 
 
 We can retrace in thought the scale of the successive necessities 
 of destruction which the earth was thus constrained to undergo. 
 
 Against the irrespirable air which at first enveloped it, vegetables 
 were its saviours. Against the suffocating and terrific density of 
 these lower vegetable forms, the rough coating which encrusted it, 
 the nibbling, gnawing insect, which we have since execrated, was the 
 sanitary agent. Against the insect, the frog, and the reptile mass, 
 the venomous reptile proved an useful expurgator. Finally, when 
 the higher life, the winged life, took its flight, earth found a barrier 
 against the too rapid transports of her young fecundity in the power- 
 ful voracious birds, eagles, falcons, or vultures. 
 
 But these useful destroyers have diminished in numbers as they 
 have become less necessary. The swarms of small creeping animals 
 on which the viper principally whetted his teeth having wonderfully 
 thinned, the viper also grows rare. The world of winged game being 
 cleared in its turn, either by man's depredations or by the disappear- 
 ance of certain insects on which the small birds lived, you see that 
 
 the odious tyrants of the air are also decreasing; the eagle is seldom 
 met with, even among the Alps, and the exaggerated and enor-
 
 BIRDS OF PREY. 157 
 
 mous prices which the falcon fetches, seems to prove that the 
 former, the noblest of the raptores, has now-a-days nearly disappeared. 
 
 Thus nature gravitates towards a less violent order. Does this 
 mean that death will ever diminish? Death! no; but pain surely. 
 
 The world little by little falls under the power of the Being who 
 alone understands the useful equilibrium of life and death, who can 
 regulate it in such wise as to maintain the scale even between the 
 living species, to encourage them according to their merit or innocence 
 to simplify, to soften, and (if I may hazard the woixl) to moralize 
 death, by rending it swift, and freeing it from anguish. 
 
 Death was never our serious objection. Is it more than a simple 
 mask of life's transformations ? But pain is an objection, grave, 
 cruel, terrible. Therefore, little by little, it will disappear from the 
 earth. Its agents, the fierce executioners of the life which they 
 plucked out by torture, are already very rare. 
 
 Assuredly, when I survey, in the Museum, the sinister assemblage 
 of nocturnal and diurnal birds of prey, I do not much regret the 
 destruction of these species. Whatever pleasure our personal in- 
 stincts of violence, our admiration of strength, may cause us to take 
 in these winged robbers, it is impossible to misread in their deathlike 
 masks the baseness of their nature. Their pitifully flattened skulls 
 are sufficient evidence that, though greatly favoured with wing, and 
 crooked beak, and talons, they have not the least need to make use 
 of their intelligence. Their constitution, which has made them 
 swiftest of the swift, strongest of the strong, has enabled them to dis- 
 pense with address, stratagem, and tactic. As for the courage with 
 which one is tempted to endow them, what occasion have they to 
 display it, since they encounter none but inferior enemies? Enemies? 
 no ; victims ! When the rigour of the season, or hunger, drives their 
 young to emigrate, it leads to the beak of these dull tyrants count- 
 less numbers of innocents, very superior in every sense to their 
 murderers; it prodigalizes the birds which are artists, and singers, 
 and architects, as a prey to these vulgar assassins; and for the eagle 
 and the buzzard provides a banquet of nightingales.
 
 158 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 The flattened skull is the degrading sign of these murderers. I 
 trace it in the most extolled, in those whom man has the most 
 flattered, and even in the noble falcon; noble, it is true, and I the 
 less dispute the justice of the title, because, unlike the eagle and 
 other executioners, it knows how to kill its prey at a blow, and 
 scorns to torture it. 
 
 These birds of prey, with their small brains, offer a striking con- 
 trast to the numerous amiable and plainly intelligent species which 
 we rind among the smaller birds. The head of the former is only a 
 beak; that of the latter has a face. What comparison can be made 
 between these brute giants and the intelligent, all-human bird, the 
 robin redbreast, which at this very moment hovers about me, perches 
 on my shoulder or my paper, examines my writing, warms himself at
 
 BIRDS OF PREY. 
 
 159 
 
 the fire, or curiously peers through the window to see if the spring- 
 time will not soon return. 
 
 If there be any choice among the raptores, I should certainly 
 
 prefer dare I say 
 the eagle. Among 
 have seen nothing 
 posing, as our five 
 (in the Jardin des 
 gether like so many 
 domed with superb 
 delicate white down, 
 mantles of gray, 
 exiles, who seem to 
 selves the vicissi- 
 the political events 
 them from their 
 What real differ- 
 the eagle and the 
 passionately loves 
 living flesh, very 
 
 it? the vulture to 
 the bird -world I 
 so grand, so im- 
 Algerian vultures 
 Plantes), posted to- 
 Turkish pachas, a- 
 cravats of the most 
 and draped in noble 
 A solemn divan of 
 discuss among them- 
 tudes of things and 
 which have driven 
 native country, 
 ence exists between 
 vulture? The eagle 
 blood, and prefers 
 rarely eating the 
 
 dead. The vulture seldom kills, and directly benefits life by restoring 
 to its service and to the grand current of vital circulation the dis- 
 organized objects which would associate with others to their dis- 
 organization. The eagle lives upon murder only, and may justly be 
 entitled -the minister of Death. On the contrary, the vulture is the 
 servant of Life. 
 
 Owing to his strength and beauty, the eagle has been adopted as 
 an emblem by more than one warrior race which lived, like himself, 
 by rapine. The Persians and the Romans chose him. We now as- 
 sociate him with the lofty ideas which these great empires originate. 
 Grave people even an Aristotle have accredited the absurd fable 
 that he daringly eyed the sun, and put his offspring to the test, by 
 making them also gaze upon it. Once started on this glorious road, 
 the philosophers halted no more. Buffon went the furthest. He
 
 100 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 eulogizes the eagle for his temperance. He does not eat at all, says he. 
 
 The truth is, that when his prey is large, he feasts himself on the spot. 
 
 and carries but a small portion to 
 his family. The king of the air, 
 says he again, disdains small ani- 
 mals. But observation points to a 
 directly opposite conclusion. The 
 ordinary eagle attacks with eagerness 
 the most timid of beings, the hare; 
 the spotted eagle assails the duck. 
 The booted eagle has a preference for 
 field mice and house mice, and eats 
 them so greedily that he swallows 
 them without killing them. The 
 bald-headed eagle, or pygargo, will 
 frequently slay his own young, and 
 often drives them from the nest be- 
 fore they can support themselves. 
 
 Near Havre I have observed one 
 instance of truly royal nobility, and, 
 above all, of sobriety, in an eagle. 
 A bird, captured at sea, but which 
 has fallen into far too kindly hands 
 in a butcher's house, is so gorged 
 with an abundance of food obtained 
 without fighting, that he appears to 
 regret nothing. A Falstaff of an 
 eagle, he grows fat, and cares no 
 longer for the chase, or the plains 
 of heaven. If he no longer fixedly 
 eyes the sun, he watches the kitchen, 
 and for a titbit allows the children 
 to drag him by the tail. 
 If rank is to be decided by strength, the first place must not
 
 BIRDS OF PREY. 161 
 
 be given to the eagle, but to the bird which figures in the " Thou- 
 sand and One Nights " under the name of Roc, the condor, the giant 
 of gigantic mountains, the Cordilleras. It is the largest of the 
 vultures is, fortunately, the rarest and the most destructive, as it 
 feeds only on live prey. When it meets with a large animal, it so 
 gorges itself with meat that it is unable to stir, and may then be 
 killed with a few blows of a stick. 
 
 To judge these species truly we must examine the eyrie of the 
 eagle, the rude, ill-constructed platform Avhich serves for its nest ; 
 compare this rough and clumsy work I do not say with the delicate 
 chef-d'oeuvre of a chaffinch's nest but with the constructions of 
 insects, the excavations of ants, where the industrious workman 
 varies his art to infinity, and displays a genius so singular in its 
 foresight and resources. 
 
 The traditional esteem which man cherishes for the courage of the 
 great Raptores is much diminished when we read, in Wilson, that 
 a tiny bird, a fly-catcher, such as the purple martin, will hunt the 
 great black eagle, pursue it, harass it, banish it from its district, give 
 it not a moment's repose. It is a truly extraordinary spectacle to see 
 this little hero, adding all his weight to his strengtli, that he may 
 make the greater impression, rise and let himself drop from the clouds 
 on the back of the large robber, mount without letting go, and prick 
 him forward with his beak in lieu of a spur. 
 
 Without going so far as America, you may see, in the Jardin des 
 Plantes, the ascendancy of the little over the great, of mind over 
 matter, in the singular tete-a-tete of the gypaetus and the crow. The 
 latter, a very feeble animal, and the feeblest of birds of prey, which 
 in his black garb has the air of a pedagogue, labours hard to civilize 
 his brutal fellow-prisoner, the gypaetus. It is amusing to observe 
 how he teaches him to play humanizes him, so to speak by a hun- 
 dred tricks of his own invention, and refines his rude nature. This 
 comedy is performed with special distinction when the crow has a 
 reasonable number of spectators. It has appeared to me that he disdains 
 to exhibit his savoir-faire before a single eye-witness. He calculates 
 
 11
 
 162 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 upon their assistance, earns their respect in case of need. I have seen 
 him dart back with his beak the little pebbles which a child had 
 flung at him. The most remarkable pastime which he teaches to his 
 big friend is, to make him hold by one end a stick which he himself 
 draws by the other. This show of a struggle between strength and 
 weakness, this simulated equality, is well adapted to soften the bar- 
 barian, and though at first he gives but little heed to it, he afterwards 
 yields to continued urgency, and ends by throwing himself into the 
 sport with a savage good temper. 
 
 In the presence of this repulsively ferocious figure, armed with 
 invincible talons and a beak tipped with iron, which would kill at 
 the first blow, the crow has not the least fear. With the security of 
 a superior mind, before this heavy mass he goes, he comes, he wheels 
 
 
 
 about, he snatches its prey before its eyes; the other growls, but too 
 late; his tutor, far more nimble, with his black eye, metallic and
 
 BIRDS OF PREY. 163 
 
 lustrous as steel, has seen the forward movement; he leaps away; if 
 need be, he climbs a branch or two higher; he growls in his turn 
 he admonishes his companion. 
 
 This facetious personage has in his pleasantry the advantage due to 
 the seriousness, gravity, and sadness of his demeanour. I saw one 
 daily, in the streets of Nantes, on the threshold of an alley, which, 
 in his demi-captivity, could only console himself for his clipped wings 
 by playing tricks with the dogs. He suffered the curs to pass 
 unmolested ; but when his malicious eye espied a dog of handsome 
 
 figure, worthy indeed of his courage, he hopped behind him, and, by 
 a skilful and unperceived manoeuvre, leapt upon his back, gave him, 
 hot and dry, two stabs with his strong black beak: the dog fled, 
 howling. Satisfied, tranquil, and serious, the crow returned to his 
 post, and one could never have supposed that so grim-looking a fellow 
 had just indulged in such an escapade. 
 
 It is said that in a state of freedom, strong in their spirit of 
 association, and in their numbers, they hazard the most audacious 
 games, even to watching the absence of the eagle, stealing into his 
 redoubtable nest, and robbing it of the eggs. And, what is mere 
 difficult to believe, naturalists pretend to have seen great troops of 
 them, which, when the eagle is at home, and defending his family, 
 deafen him with their cries, defy him, entice him forth, and contrive, 
 though not without a battle, to carry off an eaglet.
 
 164 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Such exertions and such danger for this miserable prey ! If the 
 thing be true, we must suppose that the prudent republic, frequently 
 troubled or harassed by the tyrant of the country, decrees the 
 extinction of his race, and believes itself bound by a great act of 
 devotion, cost what it may, to execute the decree. 
 
 Their sagacity is shown in a thousand ways, especially in the 
 judicious and well-weighed choice of their abode. Those which I 
 observed at Nantes, on one of the hills of the Erdre, passed over my 
 head every morning, and returned every evening. Evidently they 
 had their town and country houses. By day they perched on the 
 cathedral towers to make their observations, ferreting out (Jventant) 
 what good things the city might have to offer. At close of day, they 
 regained the woods, and the well-sheltered rocks where they love to 
 pass the night. These are domiciliated people, and no mere birds of 
 passage. Attached to their family, especially to their mates, to whom 
 they are scrupulously loyal, their peculiar dwelling-place should be the 
 nest. But the dread of the great birds of night decides them to sleep 
 together in twenties or thirties a sufficient number for a combat, if 
 
 such should arise. Their special object of hate and horror is the owl; 
 when day breaks, they take their revenge for his nocturnal misdeeds :
 
 BIRDS OF PREY. 165 
 
 they hoot him; they give him chase; profiting by his embarrassment, 
 they persecute him to death. 
 
 There is no form of association by which they do not know how 
 to profit. That which is sweetest the family does not induce them 
 to forget, as you may see, the confederacy for defence or the league 
 for attack. On the contrary, they associate themselves even with 
 their superior rivals, the vultures, and call, precede, or follow them, 
 to feed at their expense. They unite and this is a stronger illustra- 
 tion with their enemy the eagle; at least, they surround him to 
 profit by his combats, by the fray in which he triumphs over some 
 great animal. These shrewd spectators wait at a little distance until 
 the eagle has feasted to his satisfaction, and gorged himself with 
 blood; when this takes place, he flies away, and the remainder falls 
 to the crows. 
 
 Their evident superiority over so great a number of birds is due 
 to their longevity and to the experience which their excellent memoiy 
 enables them to acquire and profit by. Very different to the majority 
 of animals, whose duration of life is proportionable to the duration of 
 their infancy, they reach maturity at the end of a year, and live, it is 
 said, a century 
 
 The great variety of their food, which includes every kind of 
 animal or vegetable nutriment, every dead or living prey, gives them 
 a wide acquaintance with things and seasons, harvests and hunts. 
 They interest themselves in everything, and observe everything. The 
 ancients, who lived far more completely than ourselves in and with 
 nature, found it no small profit to follow, in a hundred obscure things 
 where human experience as yet affords no light, the directions of so 
 prudent and sage a bird. 
 
 With due submission to the noble Raptores, the crow, which 
 frequently guides them, despite his "inky suit" and uncouth visage, 
 despite the coarseness of appetite imputed to him, is not the less the 
 superior genius of the great species of which he is, in size, already a 
 diminution. 
 
 But the crow, after all, represents only utilitarian prudence, the
 
 166 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 wisdom of self-interest. To arrive at the higher orders, the heroes of 
 the winged race, the sublime and impassioned artists, we must reduce 
 the bird in size, and lower the material to exalt the mental and moral 
 development. Nature, like so many mothers, has shown a weakness 
 for her smallest offspring.
 
 THE UGHT-THE 83CHT. 
 
 11 A
 
 " LIGHT ! more light ! " Such were the last words of 
 Goethe. This utterance of expiring genius is the general 
 cry of Nature, and re-echoes from world to world. What 
 was said by that man of power one of the eldest sons of 
 - God is said by His humblest children, the least advanced in 
 the scale of animal life, the molluscs in the depths of ocean; 
 they will not dwell where the light never penetrates. The 
 flower seeks the light, turns towards it; without it, sickens. Our 
 fellow-workers, the animals, rejoice like us, or mourn like us, 
 according as it comes or goes. My grandson, but two months 
 old, bursts into tears when the day declines, 
 v " This summer, when walking in my garden, I heard and I 
 
 saw on a branch a bird singing to the setting sun; he inclined him- 
 self towards the light, and was plainly enchanted by it. I was equally 
 charmed to see him ; our pitiful caged birds had never inspired me with 
 the idea of that intelligent and powerful creature, so little, so full of
 
 172 THE LIGHT. 
 
 passion. I trembled at his song. He bent his head behind him, 
 his swollen bosom; never singer or poet enjoyed so simple an ecstasy. 
 It was not love, however (the season was past), it was clearly the 
 glory of the day which raptured him the charm of the gentle sun ! 
 
 " Barbarous is the science, the hard pride, which disparages to 
 such an extent animated nature, and raises so impassable a barrier 
 between man and his inferior brothers ! 
 
 " With tears I said to him : ' Poor child of light, which thou 
 reflectest in thy song, truly thou hast good cause to hymn it ! Night, 
 replete with snares and dangers for thee, too closely resembles death. 
 Would that thou mightst see the light of the morrow ! ' Then, passing 
 in spirit from his destiny to that of all living beings which, since the 
 dim profundities of creation, have so slowly risen to the day, I said, 
 like Goethe and the little bird : ' Light, light, O Lord, more light ! ' ; ' 
 (MICHELET, The People, p. 62, edit. 1846.) 
 
 The world of fishes is the world of silence. Men say, "Dumb as 
 a fish." 
 
 The world of insects is the world of night. They are all light- 
 shunners. Even those, which, like the bee, labour during the day- 
 time, prefer the shades of obscurity. 
 
 The world of birds is the world of light of song. 
 
 All of them live in the sun, fill themselves with it, or are inspired 
 by it. Those of the South carry its reflected radiance on their wings; 
 those of our colder climates in their songs; many of them follow it 
 from land to land. 
 
 "See," says St. John, "how at morning time they hail the rising
 
 THE NIGHT. 
 
 173 
 
 sun, and at evening faithfully congregate to watch it setting 
 
 Scottish shores. Towards evening, 
 
 the heath-cock, that he may see 
 
 it longer, stands on tiptoe and 
 
 balances himself on the branch of 
 
 the tallest willow." 
 
 Light, love, and song, have for 
 them but one meaning. If you 
 would have the captive nightingale 
 sing when it is not the season of 
 his loves, cover up his cage, then 
 suddenly let in the light upon him, 
 and he recovers his voice. The 
 unfortunate chaffinch, blinded by 
 barbarous hands, sings with a 
 despairing and sickly animation, 
 creating for himself the light of 
 harmony with his voice, becoming a 
 sun unto himself in his internal fire. 
 
 I would willingly believe, that 
 this is the chief inspiration of the 
 bird's song in our gloomy climates, 
 where the sun appears only in vivid 
 flashes. In comparison with those 
 brilliant zones where he never quits 
 the horizon, our countries, veiled 
 in mist and cloud, but glowing at 
 intervals, have exactly the effect of 
 the cage, first covered, and then 
 exposed, of the imprisoned night- 
 ingale. They provoke the strain, 
 and, like light, awaken bursts of 
 harmony. 
 
 Even the bird's flight is influenced by it. 
 
 Flight depends on the
 
 174 THE LIGHT. 
 
 eye quite as much as on the wing. Among species gifted with a keen 
 and delicate vision, like the falcon, which from the loftiest heights of 
 heaven can espy the worm in a thicket like the swallow, which 
 from a distance of one thousand feet can perceive a gnat flight is 
 sure, daring, and charming to look at in its infallible certainty. Far 
 otherwise is it with the myopes, the short-sighted, as you may see 
 by their gait ; they fly with caution, grope about, and are afraid of 
 falling. 
 
 The eye and the wing sight and flight that exalted degree 
 of puissance which enables you incessantly to embrace in a glance, 
 and to overleap, immense landscapes, vast countries, kingdoms which 
 permits you to see in complete detail, and not to contract, as in a 
 geographical chart, so grand a variety of objects to possess and to 
 discern, almost as if you were the equal of God; oh, what a source 
 of boundless enjoyment ! what a strange and mysterious happiness, 
 scarcely conceivable by man ! 
 
 Observe, too, these perceptions are so strong and so vivid that 
 they grave themselves on the memory, and to such a degree that even 
 an inferior animal like a pigeon retraces and recognizes every little 
 accident in a road which he has only traversed once. How, then, 
 will it be with the sage stork, the shrewd crow, the intelligent 
 swallow ? 
 
 Let us confess this superiority. Let us regard without envy those 
 blisses of vision which may, perhaps, one day be ours in a happier 
 existence. This felicity of seeing so much of seeing so far of 
 seeing so clearly of piercing the infinite with the eye and the 
 /wing, almost at the same moment, to what does it belong ? To that 
 life which is our distant ideal. A life in the fulness of light, and 
 without shadow ! 
 
 Already the bird's existence is, as it were, a foretaste of it. It 
 would here prove to him a divine source of knowledge, if, in its 
 sublime freedom, it were not burdened by the two fatalities which 
 chain our globe to a condition of barbarism, and render futile all our 
 aspirations.
 
 THE NIGHT. 175 
 
 First, the fatal need of the stomach, which shackles all 
 \ of us, but which especially persecutes that living flame, that 1 
 
 devouring fire, the bird, which is forced incessantly to 
 renew itself, to seek, to wander, to forget, condemned, without hope 
 of relief, to the barren mobility of its too changeful impressions. 
 
 The other fatal necessity is that of night, of slumber, hours of. 
 shadow and ambush, when his wing is broken or captured, or, while 
 defenceless, he loses the power of flight, strength, and light. 
 
 When we speak of light, we mean safety for all creatures. 
 
 It is the guarantee of life for man and the animal ; it is, as it 
 were, the serene, calm, and reassuring smile, the privilege of Nature. 
 It puts an end to the sombre terrors which pursue us in the shadows, 
 to the not unfounded fears, and to the torment also of cruel dreams 
 to the troublous thoughts which agitate and overthrow the soul. 
 
 In the security of civil association which has existed for so long 
 a period, man can scarcely comprehend the agonies of savage life 
 during these hours that Nature leaves it defenceless, when her terrible 
 impartiality opens the way to death no less legitimate than life. In 
 vain you reproach her. She tells the bird that the owl also has a 
 right to live. She replies to man : " I must feed my lions." 
 
 Read in books of travels the panic of unfortunate castaways lost 
 in the solitudes of Africa, of the miserable fugitive slave who only 
 escapes the barbarity of man to fall into the hands of a barbarous 
 nature. What tortures, as soon as at sunset the lion's ill-omened 
 scouts, the wolves and jackals, begin to prowl, accompanying him at 
 a distance, preceding him to scent his prey, or following him like 
 ghouls ! They whine in your ears : " To-morrow we shall seek thy 
 bones !" But, O horror ! see here, at but two paces distant ! He
 
 176 THE LIGHT. 
 
 sees you, watches you, sends a deep roar from the cavernous recesses 
 of his throat of brass, sums up his living prey, exacts and lays claim 
 to it ! The horse cannot be held still ; he trembles, a cold sweat 
 pours over him, he plunges to and fro. His rider, crouching between 
 the watch-fires, if he succeeds in kindling any, with difficulty pre- 
 serves sufficient strength to feed the rampart of light which is his. 
 only safeguard. 
 
 Night is equally terrible for the birds, even in our climates, where it 
 would seem less dangerous. What monsters it conceals, what fright- 
 ful chances for the bird lurk in its obscurity ! Its nocturnal foes have 
 this characteristic in common their approach is noiseless. The 
 screech-owl flies with a silent wing, as if wrapped in tow (comme 
 etoupfe de ouate). The weasel insinuates its long body into the nest 
 without disturbing a leaf. The eager polecat, athirst for the warm 
 life-blood, is so rapid, that in a moment it bleeds both parents and pro- 
 geny, and slaughters a whole family. 
 
 It seems that the bird, when it has little ones, enjoys a second 
 sight for these dangers. It has to protect a family far more feeble 
 and more helpless than that of the quadruped, whose young can walk 
 as soon as born. But how protect them ? It can do nothing but 
 remain at its post and die ; it cannot fly away, for its love has broken 
 its wings. All iiiglii the narrow entry of the nest is guarded by the 
 father, who sinks with fatigue, and opposes danger with feeble beak 
 and shaking head. What will this avail if the enormous jaw of the 
 serpent suddenly appears, or the horrible eye of the bird of death, 
 immeasurably enlarged by fear ? 
 
 Anxious for its young, it has little care for itself. In its "season 
 of solitude Nature spares it the tortures of prevision. Sad and 
 dejected rather than alarmed, it is silent, it sinks down and hides its 
 little head under its wings, and even its neck disappears among the 
 plumes. This position of complete self-abandonment, of confidence, 
 which it had held in the egg in the happy maternal prison, where 
 its security was so perfect it resumes every evening in the midst of 
 perils and without protection.
 
 THE NIGHT. 
 
 177 
 
 -. 
 
 Heavy for all creatures is the gloom of evening, and even for the 
 protected. The Dutch painters have seized and expressed this truth 
 very forcibly in reference to the beasts grazing at liberty in the 
 meadows. The horse of his own accord draws near his companion, 
 and rests his head upon him. The cow, followed by her calf, returns 
 to the fence, and would fain find her way to the byre. For these 
 animals have a stable, a lodging, a shelter against nocturnal snares. 
 The bird has but a leaf for its roof ! 
 
 How great, then, its happiness in the morning, when terrors 
 vanish, when the shadows fade away, when the smallest coppice 
 brightens and grows clear ! What chattering on the edge of every' 
 nest, what lively conversations ! It is, as it were, a mutual felicita- 
 tion at seeing one another again, at being still alive ! Then the songs 
 commence. From the furrow the lark mounts aloft, with a loud 
 hymn, and bears to heaven's gate the joy of earth. 
 
 /As with the bird, so with man. Every line in the ancient Vedas 
 of India is a hymn to the light, the guardian of life to the sun which 
 
 12
 
 178 
 
 THE LIGHT. 
 
 every day, by unveiling the world, creates it anew and preserves it. 
 We revive, we breathe again, we traverse our dwelling-places, we 
 regain our families, we count over our herds. Nothing has perished, 
 and life is complete. No tiger has surprised us. No horde of beasts 
 of prey have invaded us. The black serpent has not profited by our 
 slumbers. Blessed be thou, O sun, who givest us yet another day ! 
 
 All animals, says the Hindu, and especially the wisest, the 
 elephant, the Brahmin of creation, salute the sun, and praise it grate- 
 fully at dawn ; they sing to it from their own hearts a hymn of 
 thankfulness. 
 
 But a single creature utters it, pronounces it for all of us, sings it. 
 Who ? One of the weak which fears most keenly the night, and 
 hails with eagerest joy the morning which lives in and by the light 
 whose tender, infinitely sensitive, extended, penetrating vision, 
 discerns all its accidents and which is most intimately associated 
 with the decline, the eclipses, and the resurrection of light. 
 
 The bird for all nature chants the morning hymn and the bene- 
 diction of the day. He is her priest and her augur, her divine and 
 innocent voice.
 
 
 STORM AND WINTER. 
 
 ONE of Nature's confidants, a sacred soul, as simple as 
 profound, the poet Virgil, saw in the bird, as the ancient 
 Italian wisdom had seen in it, an augur and a prophet of 
 the changes of the skies : 
 
 Nul. sans ctre averti, n'eprouva les orages 
 La grue, avec effroi, s'&ancant des vallees, 
 Fuit ces noires vapeurs de la terre exhalees 
 L'hirondelle en volant effleure le rivage; 
 Tremblante pour ses osufs, la fourmi demenage. 
 Des lugubres corbeaux les noires legions 
 Fendent 1'air, qui fremit sous leurs longs bataillons 
 Vois les oiseaux de mer, et ceux que les prairies 
 Xourrissent pres des eaux sur des rives fleuries. 
 De leur sejour humide on les voit s'approcher, 
 Offrir leur tete aux flots qui battent le rocher, 
 Promener sur les eaux leur troupe vagabonde, 
 Se plonger dans leur sein, reparaitre sur 1'onde, 
 S'y replonger encore, et, par cent jeux divers, 
 Annoncer les torrents suspendus dans les airs. 
 Seule, errante a pas lents sur 1'aride rivage, 
 La corneille enrou6e appelle aussi 1'orage.
 
 182 STORTII AND WINTER. 
 
 Le soir, la jeune fille, en tournant son fuseau, 
 Tire encore de sa lampe un pr6sage nouveau, 
 Lorsque la meche en feu, dont la clarte s'emousse, 
 Se couvre en petillant de noirs flocons de 
 
 Mais la se'curite reparait a son lour 
 
 L'alcyon ne vieut plus sur 1'humide rivage, 
 
 Aux tiedeurs du soleil etaler son plumage 
 
 L'air s'eclaircit enfin ; du sominet des montagnes, 
 
 Le brouillard affaisse descend dans les campagnes, 
 
 Et le triste hibou, le soir, au haul des toits, 
 
 En longs gemissements ne traine plus sa voix. 
 
 Les corbeaux meme, instruits de la fin de 1'orage, 
 
 Folatrent a 1'euvi parmi 1'epais feuillage, 
 
 Et, d'un gosier moins rauque, annon9ant les beaux jours, 
 
 Vont revoir dans leurs nids le fruit de leurs amours." 
 
 ' The Georgics," translated by Delillc* 
 
 A being eminently electrical, the bird is more en rapport than 
 any other with numerous meteorological phenomena of heat and 
 magnetism, whose secrets neither our senses nor our appreciation can 
 arrive at. He perceives them in their birth, in their early beginnings, 
 even before they manifest themselves. He possesses, as it were, a 
 kind of physical prescience. What more natural than that man, 
 whose perception is much slower, and who does not recognize them 
 
 * We subjoin Dryden's version of the above passage (" Georgics," Book I.) : 
 
 " Wet weather seldom hurts the most unwise. 
 So plain the signs, such prophets are the skies : 
 The wary crane foresees it first, and sails 
 Above the storm, and leaves the lowly vales ; 
 The cow looks up. and from afar can find 
 The change of heaven, and snuffs it in the wind. 
 The swallow skims the river's watery face, 
 The frogs renew the croaks of their loquacious race. . . . 
 Besides, the several sorts of watery fowls, 
 That swim the seas, or haunt the standing pools; 
 The swans that sail along the silver flood, 
 And dive with stretching necks to search their food, 
 Then lave their back with sprinkling dews in vain, 
 And stem the stream to meet the promised rain. 
 The crow, with clamorous cries, the shower demands, 
 And single stalks along the desert sands. 
 The nightly virgin, while her wheel she plies, 
 Foresees the storm impending in the skies.
 
 MIGRATIONS. 183 
 
 until after the event, should interrogate this instructive precursor 
 which announces them ? This is the principle of auguries. And there 
 is no truer wisdom than this pretended "folly of antiquity." 
 
 Meteorology, especially, may derive from hence a great advantage. 
 It will possess the surest means. And already it has found a guide 
 in the foresight of the birds. Would to Heaven that Napoleon, in 
 September 1811, had taken note of the premature migration of the 
 birds of the North ! From the storks and the cranes he might have 
 secured the most trustworthy information. In their precocious 
 departure, he might have divined the immineney of a severe and 
 terrible winter. They hastened towards the South, and he he 
 remained at Moscow ! 
 
 In the midst of the ocean, the weary bird which reposes for a 
 night on the vessel's mast, beguiled afar from his route by this 
 moving asylum, recovers it, nevertheless, without difficulty. So 
 complete is his sympathy with the globe, so exactly does he know 
 the true realm of light, that, on the following morning, he 
 commits himself to the breeze without hesitation ; the briefest con- 
 sultation with himself suffices. He chooses, on the immense abyss, 
 uniform and without other path than the vessel's track, the exact 
 course which will lead him whither he wishes to go. There, not as 
 
 When sparkling lamps their sputtering light advance, 
 And in the sockets oily bubbles dance. 
 
 " Then, after showers, 'tis easy to descry, 
 Returning suns, and a serener sky ; 
 The stars shine smarter, and the moon adorns, 
 As with unborrowed beams, her sharpened horns ; 
 The filmy gossamer now flits no more, 
 Xor halcyons bask on the short sunny shore : 
 Their litter is not tossed by sows unclean, 
 But a blue draughty mist descends upon the plain. 
 And owls, that mark the setting sun, declare 
 A star-light evening, and a morning fair. . . . 
 Then thrice the ravens rend the liquid air, 
 And croaking notes proclaim the settled fair. 
 Then, round their airy palaces they fly 
 To greet the sun: and seized with secret joy, 
 When storms are over-blown, with food repair 
 To their forsaken nests, and callow care."
 
 184 STORM AND WINTER. 
 
 upon land, exists no local observation, no landmark, no guide ; the 
 currents of the atmosphere alone, in sympathy with those of water 
 perhaps, also, some invisible magnetic currents pilot this hardy 
 voyager. 
 
 How strange a science ! Not only does the swallow in Europe 
 know that the insect which fails him there awaits him elsewhere, and 
 goes in quest of it, travelling upon the meridian ; but in the same 
 latitude, and under the same climates, the loriot of the United States 
 understands that the cherry is ripe in France, and departs without 
 hesitation to gather his harvest of our fruits. 
 
 It would be wrong to believe that these migrations occur in their 
 season, without any definite choice of days, aud at indeterminate 
 epochs. We ourselves have been able to observe, on the contrary, the 
 exact and lucid decision which regulates them ; not an hour too soon 
 or too late. 
 
 When living at Nantes, in October 1851, the season being still 
 exceptionally fine, the insects numerous, and the feeding-ground of the 
 swallows plentifully provided, it was our happy chance to catch sight 
 of the sage republic, convoked in one immense and noisy assembly, 
 deliberating on the roof of the church of St. Felix, which dominates 
 over the Erdre, and looks across the Loire. Why was the meeting 
 held on this particular day, at this hour more than at any other ? 
 We did not know ; soon afterwards we were able to understand it. 
 
 Bright was the morning sky, but the wind blew from La Vende'e. 
 My pines bewailed their fate, and from my afflicted cedar issued a 
 low deep voice of mourning. The ground was strewn with fruit,
 
 MIGRATIONS. 185 
 
 which we all set to work to gather. Gradually the weather grew 
 cloudy, the sky assumed a dull leaden gray, the wind sank, all was 
 death-like. It was then, at about four o'clock, that simultaneously 
 arrived, from all points, from the wood, from the Erdre, from the city, 
 from the Loire, from the Sevre, infinite legions, darkening the day, 
 which settled on the church roof, with a myriad voices, a myriad 
 cries, debates, discussions. Though ignorant of their language, it was 
 not difficult for us to perceive that they differed among themselves. 
 It may be that the youngest, beguiled by the warm breath of autumn, 
 would fain have lingered longer. But the wiser and more experienced 
 travellers insisted upon departure. They prevailed ; the black masses, 
 moving all at once like a huge cloud, winged their flight towards the 
 south-east, probably towards Italy. They had scarcely accomplished 
 three hundred leagues (four or five hours' flight) before all the 
 cataracts of heaven were let loose to deluge the earth ; for a moment 
 we thought it was a Flood. Sheltered in our house, which shook with 
 the furious blast, we admired the wisdom of the winged soothsayers, 
 which had so prudently anticipated the annual epoch of migration. 
 
 Clearly it was not hunger that had driven them. With a beau- 
 tiful and still abundant nature around them, they had perceived and 
 seized upon the precise hour, without antedating it. The morrow 
 would have been too late. The insects, beaten down by the tempest 
 of rain, would have been undiscoverable ; all the life on which they 
 subsisted would have taken refuge in the earth. 
 
 Moreover, it is not famine alone, or the forewarning of famine, 
 that decides the movements of the migrating species. If those birds 
 which live on insects are constrained to depart, those which feed on 
 wild berries might certainly remain. What impels them ? Is it the 
 cold ? Most of them could readily endure it. To these special reasons 
 we must add another, of a loftier and more general character it is 
 the need of light. 
 
 Even as the plant unalterably follows the day and the sun, even 
 as the mollusc (to use a previous illustration) rises towards and prefers 
 to live in the brighter regions even so the bird, with its sensitive 
 
 12 A
 
 186 
 
 STORM AND WINTER. 
 
 eye, grows melancholy in the shortened days and gathering mists of 
 autumn. That decline of light, which is sometimes dear to us for 
 moral causes, is for the bird a grief, a death. Light ! more light ! 
 Let us rather die than see the day no more ! This is the true pur- 
 port of its last autumnal strain, its last cry on its departure in October. 
 I comprehended it in their farewells. 
 
 Their resolution is truly bold and courageous, when one thinks 
 on the tremendous journey they must achieve, twice every year, over 
 mountains, and seas, and deserts, under such diverse climates, by 
 variable winds, through many perils, and such tragical adventures. 
 For the light and hardy voiliers, for the church-martin, for the keen 
 swallow which defies the falcon, the enterprise perhaps is trivial. 
 But other tribes have neither their strength nor their wings ; most 
 of them are at this time heavy with abundant food ; they have 
 passed through the glowing time of love and maternity ; the female 
 has finished that grand work of nature has given birth to, and 
 brought up her callow brood ; her mate, how he has spent his vigour
 
 MIGRATIONS. 187 
 
 in song ! These two, then, have consummated life ; a virtue has 
 gone out from them ; an age already separates them from the fresh 
 energy of their spring. 
 
 Many would remain, but a goad impels them forward. The 
 slowest are the most ardent. The French quail will traverse the 
 Mediterranean, will cross the range of Atlas ; sweeping over the 
 Sahara, it will plunge into the kingdoms of the negro ; these, too, it 
 will leave behind ; and, finally, if it pauses at the Cape, it is because 
 there the infinite Austral ocean commences, which promises it no nearer 
 shelter than the icy wastes of the Pole, and the very winter which 
 exiled it from Egypt. 
 
 What gives them confidence for such enterprises ? Some may 
 trust to their arms, the weakest to their numbers, and abandon 
 themselves to fate. The stock-dove says : " Out of ten or a hundred 
 thousand the assassin cannot slay more than ten, and doubtlessly I 
 shall not be one" of the victims." They seize their opportunity; the 
 flying cloud passes at night ; if the moon rise, against her silver 
 radiance the black wings stand out clear and distinct ; they escape, 
 confused, in her pale lustre. The valiant lark, the national bird of 
 our ancient Gaul and of the invincible hope, also trusts to his 
 numbers ; he sets out in the day-time, or rather, he wanders from 
 province to province ; decimated, hunted, he does not the less give 
 utterance to his song. 
 
 But the lonely bird, which has neither the support of numbers 
 nor of strength, what will become of him ? What wilt thou do, poor 
 solitary nightingale, which, like others of thy race, must confront this 
 great adventure, but without assistance, without comrades? Thou, what 
 art thou, friend ? A voice ! The very power which is in thee wiH 
 be thy betrayal. In thy sombre attire, thou might well pass unseen 
 by blending with the tints of the discoloured woods of autumn. But 
 see now ! The leaf is still purple ; it wears not the dull dead brown 
 of the later months. 
 
 Ah, why dost thou not remain ? why not imitate the timorous- 
 ness of those birds which in such myriads fly no further than
 
 188 STORM AND WINTER. 
 
 Provence ? There, sheltered behind a rock, thou shalt find, I assure 
 thee, an Asiatic or African winter. The gorge of Ollioules is worth 
 all the valleys of Syria. 
 
 " No ; I must depart. Others may tarry ; for they have only to 
 gain the East. But me, my cradle summons me : I must see again 
 that glowing heaven, those luminous and sumptuous ruins where my 
 ancestors lived and sang ; I must plant my foot once more on my 
 earliest love, the rose of Asia ; I must bathe myself in the sunshine. 
 There is the mystery of life, there quickens the flame in which my 
 song shall be renewed ; my voice, my muse is the light." 
 
 Thus, then, he takes wing ; but I think his heart must throb as 
 he draws near the Alps, when their snowy peaks announce his 
 
 approach to the terror-haunted gate on whose rocks are posted the 
 cruel children of day and night, the vulture, the eagle all the hooked 
 and talon-armed robbers, athirst for the warm blood of life the 
 accursed species which inspire the senseless poetry of man some, 
 noble murderers, which bleed quickly and drain the flowing tide ; 
 others, ignoble murderers, which choke and destroy ; in a word, all 
 the hideous forms of murder and death. 
 
 I imagine to myself, then, that the poor little musician whose 
 voice is silenced not his ingegno, nor his delicate thought having
 
 MIGRATIONS. 189 
 
 no friend to consult, will halt to consider well before entering upon 
 the long ambush of the pass of Savoy. He pauses at the threshold, on 
 a friendly roof, well known to myself, or in the hallowed groves of 
 the Charmettes,* deliberates and says : " If I pass during the day, they 
 will all be there ; they know the season ; the eagle will pounce 
 upon me ; I die. If I pass by night, the great horn-owl (due), the 
 common owl (hibou), the entire host of horrible phantoms, with eyes 
 enlarged in the darkness, will seize me, and carry me off to their young. 
 Alas ! what shall I do ? I must endeavour to avoid both night and 
 day. At the gloomy hour of dawn, when the cold, raw air chills in his 
 eyrie the great fierce beast, which knows not how to build a nest, I may 
 fly unperceived. And even if he see me, I shall be leagues away before 
 he can put into motion the cumbrous machinery of his frozen wings." 
 
 The calculation is judicious, but nevertheless a score of accidents 
 may disturb it. Starting at midnight, he may encounter in the face, 
 during his long flight across Savoy, the east wind, which engulfs and 
 delays him, neutralizes his exertions, and fetters his pinions. Heavens ! 
 it is morning now. Those sombre giants, already clothed in October 
 in their snowy mantles, reveal upon their vast expanse of glittering 
 white a black spot, which moves with terrible rapidity. How gloomy 
 are they already, these mountains, and of what evil augury, draped 
 in the long folds of their winter shrouds ! Motionless as are their 
 peaks, they create beneath them and around them an everlasting 
 agitation of violent and antagonistic currents, which struggle with 
 one another so furiously that at times they compel the bird to tarry. 
 "If I fly in the lower air, the torrents which hurl through the 
 shadows with their clanging floods, will snare me in their whirling 
 vapours. And if I mount to the cold and lofty realms, which kindle 
 with a light of their own, I give myself up to death ; the frost will 
 seize and slacken my wings." 
 
 An effort has saved him. With head bent low, he plunges, he 
 falls into Italy. At Susa or towards Turin he builds a nest, and 
 strengthens his pinions. He recovers himself in the depth of the 
 * The favourite haunt of Jean Jacques Rousseau, on the bank of Lake Leman.
 
 190 STORM AND WINTER. 
 
 gigantic Lombard corbeille, that great nursery of fruits and flowers 
 where Virgil listened to his song. The land has in nowise changed ; 
 now, as then, the Italian, an exile from his home, the sad cultivator of 
 another's fields,* the durus arator, pursues the nightingale. The 
 useful insect-devourer is proscribed as an eater of grain. Let him 
 cross then, if he can, the Adriatic, from isle to isle, despite the winged 
 corsairs, which keep watch on the very rocks ; he will arrive perhaps 
 in the land ever consecrated to birds in genial, hospitable, bountiful 
 Egypt where all are spared, nourished, blessed, and kindly welcomed. 
 
 Still happier land, if in its blind hospitality it did not also shelter 
 the murderer. The nightingale and dove are gladly entertained, it is 
 true, but no less so the eagle. On the terraces of sultans, on the bal- 
 conies of minarets, ah, poor traveller, I see those flashing dreadful 
 eyes which dart their gaze this way. And I see that they have 
 already marked thee ! 
 
 Do not remain here long. Thy season will not last. The de- 
 structive wind of the desert will dry up, and destroy, and sweep 
 away thy meagre nourishment. Not a gnat will be left to sustain 
 thy wing and thy voice. Bethink thyself of the nest which thou 
 hast left in our woods, remember thy European loves. The sky was 
 gloomy, but there thou madest for thyself a sky of thine own. Love 
 was around thee ; every soul thrilled at thy voice ; the purest throbbed 
 for thee. There is the real sun, there the fairest Orient. True light 
 is where one loves. 
 
 * This was written before the annexation of Lomhardy to the new Italian kingdom.
 
 M3CRAT10NS-THE SWALLOW.
 
 
 
 MIGRATIONS: CONTINUED. 
 THE SWALLOW. 
 
 UNDOUBTEDLY the swallow has seized upon 
 our dwellings without ceremony ; she lodges 
 under our windows, under our eaves, in our 
 chimneys. She does not hold us in the slightest 
 fear. 
 
 It might have been said that she trusted 
 
 to her unrivalled wing, had she not placed her nest and her children 
 within our reach. The true reason why she has become the mistress 
 
 13
 
 194 MIGRATIONS. 
 
 of our house is, that she has taken possession not only of our house, 
 but of our heart. 
 
 In the rural mansion where my father-in-law educated his children, 
 he would hold his class during summer in a greenhouse in which 
 the swallows rested without disturbing themselves about the movements 
 of the family, quite unconstrained in their behaviour, wholly occupied 
 with their brood, passing out at the windows and returning through 
 the roof, chattering very loudly with one another, and still more 
 loudly when the master would make a pretence of saying, as St. 
 Francis said, " Sister swallows, can you not be silent?" 
 
 Theirs is 'the hearth. Where the mother has built her nest, the 
 daughter and the grand-daughter build. They return there every 
 year ; their generations succeed to it more regularly than do our own. 
 A family dies out or is dispersed, the mansion passes into other 
 hands ; but the swallow constantly returns to it, and maintains its 
 right of occupation. 
 
 It is thus that our traveller has come to be accepted as a symbol 
 of the permanency of home. She clings to it with such fidelity, that 
 though the house may be repaired, or partially demolished, or long dis- 
 turbed by masons, it is still retaken possession of, re-occupied by these 
 faithful birds of persevering memory. 
 
 / She is the bird of return. And if I bestow this title upon her, 
 it is not alone on account of her annual return, but on account of 
 her general conduct, and the direction of her flight, so varied, yet 
 nevertheless circular, and always returning upon itself. 
 
 She incessantly wheels and veers, indefatigably hovers about the 
 same area and the same locality, describing an infinity of graceful 
 curves, which, however varied, are never far distant from one another. 
 Is it to pursue her prey, the gnat which dances and floats in the air ? 
 Is it to exercise her power, her unwearying wing, without going too 
 far from her nest ? It matters not ; this revolving flight, this inces- 
 santly returning movement, has always attracted our eyes and heart, 
 throwing us into a reverie, into a world of thought. 
 
 We see her flight clearly, but never, or scarcely ever, her little
 
 THE SWALLOW. 
 
 black face. Who, then, art them, thou who always concealest thyself, 
 
 who never showest me aught 
 
 but thy trenchant wings 
 
 scythes rapid as that of Time ? 
 
 But Time goes forward without 
 
 pause ; thou, thou always re- 
 
 turnest. Thou drawest close to 
 
 my side ; it seems as if thou 
 
 wouldst graze me, wouldst touch 
 
 me ? So nearly dost thou caress 
 
 me, that I feel in my face the 
 
 wind, almost the whirr of thy 
 
 wings. Is it a bird ? Is it 
 
 a spirit ? All, if thou art a 
 
 soul, tell me so frankly, and 
 
 reveal to me the barrier which 
 
 separates the living from the 
 
 dead. 
 
 But let us not anticipate, 
 nor let loose the waters of 
 
 bitterness. Rather let us trace this bird in the people's thoughts, 
 in the good old popular wisdom, close akin, undoubtedly, to the 
 wisdom of Nature. 
 
 The people have seen in her only the natural dial, the division of 
 the seasons, of the two great hours of the year. At Easter and at 
 Michaelmas, at the epochs of family gatherings, of fairs and markets, 
 of leases and rent-paying, the black and white swallow appears, 
 and tells us the time. She comes to separate and define the 
 past and the coming seasons. At these epochs families and friends 
 meet together, but not always to find the circle complete ; in the last 
 six months this friend has disappeared, and that. The swallow 
 returns, but not for all ; many have gone a very long journey, longer 
 than the tour of France. To Germany ? No ; further, further still. 
 
 Our companions, industrious travellers, followed the swallow's
 
 196 
 
 MIGRATIONS. 
 
 life, except that on their return they frequently could no longer find 
 their nest. Of this the pendant bird warns them in an old German 
 saying, wherein the narrow popular wisdom would fain retain them 
 round the roof-tree of home. On this proverb, the great poet Ruckert, 
 metamorphosing himself into a swallow, reproducing her rhythmical 
 and circular flight, her constant turns and returns, has founded a lyric 
 at which many will laugh, but more than one will weep : 
 
 jeunesse, 
 t toujours 
 c'est loin! Oh! que c'est 1 
 qui fut autrefois ; 
 
 " Ce que chantait, ce que chantait 
 
 Celle qui ramene le printemps, 
 Rasant le village de Faile, rasant le village de 1'aile. 
 Est-ce bien ce qu'elle chante encore ? 
 
 " ' Quand je partis, quand je partis, 
 Etaient pleins 1'armoire et le coffre. 
 Quand je revins, quand je revius, 
 Je ne trouvai plus que le vide.' 
 
 " mon foyer de famille, 
 Laisse-moi seulement une fois 
 M'asseoir a la place sacree 
 Et m'envoler dans les songes ! 
 
 " Elle revient bien 1'hirondelle, 
 Et 1'armoire videe se remplit. 
 
 Mais le vide du cceur reste, mais reste le vide du coeur. 
 Et rien ne le remplira. 
 
 " Elle rase pourtant le village, 
 Elle chante comme autrefois 
 ' Quand je partis, quand je partis, 
 Coffre, armoire, tout 6tait plein. 
 Quand je revins, quand je revins 
 Je ne trouvai plus que le vide.' "
 
 THE SWALLOW. 
 
 197 
 
 Imitated: 
 
 From childhood gay, from childhood gay, 
 
 E'er breathes to me a strain, 
 How far the day, how far the day 
 
 Which ne'er may come again ! 
 
 And is her song, and is her song 
 She who brings back the spring, 
 
 The hamlet touching with her wing, the hamlet touching with her wing- 
 Is it true what she doth sing? 
 
 ' When I set forth, when I set forth, 
 
 Both barn and chest were brimming o'er ; 
 When I came back, when I came back, 
 I found a piteous lack of store." 
 
 Oh, my own home, so dearly loved, 
 
 Kind Heaven grant that I may kneel 
 Again upon thy sacred hearth, 
 
 While dreams the happy past reveal ! 
 
 The swallow surely will return, 
 
 Coffer and barn will brim once more ; 
 F.ut blank remains the heart, empty the heart remains, 
 And none may the lost restore ! 
 
 The swallow skims through the hamlet, 
 
 She sings as she sang of yore : 
 " When I set out, when I set out, 
 
 Both barn and chest were brimming o'er ; 
 When I came back, when I came back, 
 
 I found a piteous lack of store."
 
 198 MIGRATIONS. 
 
 The swallow, caught in the morning, and closely examined, is 
 seen to be a strange and ugly bird, we confess ; but this fact per- 
 fectly well agrees with what is, par excellence, the bird the being 
 among all beings born for flight. To this object Nature has sacrificed 
 everything ; she has laughed at form, thinking only of movement ; 
 and has succeeded so well that this bird, ugly in repose, is, when 
 flying, the most beautiful of all. 
 
 Scythe-like wings ; projecting eyes ; no neck (in order to treble 
 her strength) ; feet, scarcely any, or none : all is wing. These are her 
 great general features. Add a very large beak, always open, which, 
 in flight, snaps at its prey without stopping, closes, and again re-opens, 
 Thus she feeds while flying; she drinks, she bathes while flying; 
 while flving, she feeds her young. 
 
 If she does not equal in accuracy of line the thunderous swoop of 
 the falcon, by way of compensation she is freer ; she wheels, makes 
 a hundred circles, a labyrinth of undefined figures, a maze of varied 
 curves, which she crosses and re-crosses, ad infinitum. Her enemy 
 is dazzled, lost, confused, and knows not what to do. She wearies 
 and exhausts him ; he gives up the chase, but leaves her unfatigued. 
 She is the true queen of the air ; the incomparable agility of her 
 motions makes all space her own. Who, like her, can change in the 
 very moment of springing, and turn abruptly? No one. The infinitely 
 varied and capricious pursuit of a prey which is ever fluttering of the 
 gnat, the fly, the beetle, the thousand insects that waver to and fro and 
 never keep in the same direction is, undoubtedly, the best training 
 school for flight, and renders the swallow superior to all other birds. 
 
 Nature, to attain this end, to achieve this unique wing, has 
 adopted an extreme resolution, that of suppressing the foot. In the 
 large church-haunting swallow, which we call the martin, the foot is 
 reduced to a mere nothing. The wing gains in proportion ; the 
 martin, it is said, accomplishes eighty leagues in an hour. This 
 astounding swiftness equals even that of the frigate-bird. The foot, 
 remarkably short in the latter, is but a stump in the martin ; if he 
 rests, it is on his belly ; so that he never perches. With him it is
 
 THE SWALLOW. 
 
 199 
 
 the reverse of all other beings ; movement alone affords him repose 
 When he darts from the church-towers, and 
 commits himself to the air, the air cradles 
 him amorously, supports, and refreshes 
 him. If he would cling to any object, he 
 has only his own small and feeble claws. 
 But when he rests, he is infirm, and, as it 
 were, paralyzed ; he feels every roughness ; 
 the hard fatality of gravitation has re- 
 sumed possession of him ; the chief among 
 birds seems sunk to a reptile. 
 
 To take the range of a place is a great 
 difficulty for him : so, if he fixes his nest 
 aloft, at his departure from it he is con- 
 strained to let himself fall into his natural 
 element. Afloat in the air he is free, he 
 is sovereign ; but until then he is a slave, 
 dependent on everything, at the disposal 
 of any one who lays hand upon him. 
 
 The true name of the genus, which is 
 
 a full explanation in itself, is the Greek A-pode, "Without feet." The 
 great race of swallows, with its sixty species which fill the earth, 
 charms and delights us with its gracefulness, its flight, and its soft 
 chirping, owes all its agreeable qualities to the deformity of a very 
 little foot ; it is at once the foremost among the winged tribes by the 
 gift of the perfect art of flight, and the most sedentary and attached 
 to its nest. 
 
 Among this peculiar genus, the foot not supplying the place of 
 the wing, the training of the young being confined to the wing alone 
 and a protracted apprenticeship in flying, the brood keep the nest for a 
 long time, demanding the cares and developing the foresight and tender- 
 ness of the mother. The most mobile of birds is found fettered by 
 her affections. Her nest is not a transient nuptial bed, but a home, 
 a dwelling-place, the interesting theatre of a difficult education and
 
 200 MIGRATIONS. 
 
 of mutual sacrifices. It has possessed a loving mother, a faithful 
 mate, what do I say? rather, young sisters, which eagerly hasten 
 to assist the mother, are themselves little mothers, and the nurses of 
 a still younger brood. It has developed maternal tenderness, the 
 anxieties and mutual teaching of the young to the younger. 
 
 The finest thing is, that this sentiment of kinship expands. In 
 danger, every swallow is a sister ; at the ciy of one, all rush to her aid ; 
 if one be captured, all lament her, and torture their bosoms in the 
 attempt to release her. 
 
 That these charming birds extend their sympathy to birds foreign 
 to their own species one easily conceives. They have less cause than 
 any others to dread the beasts of prey, from their lightness of wing, 
 and they are the first to warn the poultry-coops of their appearance. 
 Hen and pigeon cower and seek an asylum as soon as they hear the 
 swallow's warning voice. 
 
 No; man does not en- in considering the swallow the best of the 
 winged world. 
 
 And why ? She is the happiest, because the freest. 
 ' Free by her admirable flight. 
 
 Free by her facility of nourishment. 
 
 Free by her choice of climate. 
 
 Also, whatever attention I have paid to her language (she speaks 
 amicably to her sisters, rather than sings), I have never heard her do 
 aught but bless life and praise God. 
 
 Liberia ! molto e desiato bene ! I revolved these words in my 
 heart on the great piazza of Turin, where we never wearied of watch- 
 ing the flight of innumerous swallows, hearing a thousand little 
 joyous cries. On their descent from the Alps they found there con- 
 venient habitations all prepared for their reception, in the aperture? 
 left by the scaffold-beams in the very walls of the palaces. At times, 
 and frequently in the evening, they chattered very loudly and cried 
 shrilly, to prevent us from understanding them. Often they darted 
 down headlong, just skimming the ground, but rising again so 
 quickly that one might have thought them loosened from a spring or
 
 THE SWALLOW. 201 
 
 shot from a bow. Unlike man, who is incessantly called back to 
 earth, they seem to gravitate above. Never have I seen the image 
 of a more sovereign liberty. Their tricks, their sports, were infinite. 
 We travellers regarded with pleased eyes these other travellers, 
 which bore their pilgrimage so gaily and so lightly. The horizon, 
 nevertheless, was heavy, and ringed by the Alps, which at that hour 
 seemed close at hand. The black pine-woods were already darkened 
 and overshadowed by the evening ; the glaciers glittered again with 
 a ghastly whiteness. The sorrowful barrier of these grand mountains 
 separated us from France, towards Avhich we were soon about to 
 travel slowly.
 
 HfffiMOWES Cjf THE TEMPERATE ZOHE.
 
 HARMONIES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE. 
 
 
 WHY do the swallow and so many other birds 
 place their habitation so near to that of man ? 
 Why do they make themselves our friends, mingling 
 with our labours, and lightening them by their songs ? 
 Why is that happy spectacle of alliance and harmony, 
 which is the end of nature, presented only in the 
 J u climates of our temperate zone ? 
 
 For this reason, that here the two parties, man and the bird, are 
 free from the burdensome fatalities which in the south separate them, 
 and place them in antagonism to one another. 
 
 That which enervates man, on the contrary, excites the bird, 
 endows him with ardent activity, inquietude, and the vehemence 
 which finds vents in harsh cries. Under the Tropics both are in 
 complete divergence, slaves of a despotic nature, which weighs upon 
 them differently. 
 
 To pass from those climates to ours is to become free. 
 Here we dominate over the nature which there subjugated us. I 
 quit willingly, and without one wistful glance, the overwhelming 
 paradise where, a feeble child, I have languished in the arms of the 
 great nurse who, with a too potent draught, has intoxicated while 
 thinking to suckle me.
 
 206 HARMONIES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE. 
 
 This milder nature was made for me, is my legitimate spouse I 
 recognize her. And, above all, she resembles me ; like me, she is 
 grave, she is laborious, she has the instinct of work and patience. 
 
 Her renewed seasons share among themselves her great annual 
 day, as the workman's day alternates between toil and repose. She 
 gives no fruit gratuitously ; she gives what is worth all the fruits of 
 earth industry, activity. 
 
 With what rapture I find there to-day my image, the trace of my 
 will, the creations of my exertions and my intelligence ! Deeply 
 laboured by me, by me metamorphosed, she relates to me my works, 
 reproduces to me myself. I see her as she was before she underwent 
 this human creative work, before she was made man. 
 
 Monotonous at the first glance, and melancholy, she exhibited 
 her forests and meadows ; but both strangely different from those 
 which are seen elsewhere. 
 
 The meadow, the rich green carpet of England and Ireland, with 
 its delicate soft sward constantly springing up afresh not the rough 
 fleece of the Asiatic steppes, not the spiny and hostile vegetation of 
 Africa, not the bristling savagery of American savannahs, where the 
 smallest plant is woody and harshly arborescent the European 
 meadow, through its annual and ephemeral vegetation, its lowly 
 little flowers, with mild and gentle odours, wears a youthful aspect ; 
 nay, more, an aspect of innocence, which harmonizes with our 
 thoughts and refreshes our hearts. 
 
 On this first layer of humble yielding herbage, which has no pre- 
 tensions to mount higher, stands out in bold contrast the strong indi- 
 viduality of the robust trees, so different from the confused vegetation 
 of meridional forests. 
 
 Who can single out, beneath such a mass of lianas, orchids, and 
 parasitical plants, the trees, themselves herbaceous, which are there, 
 so to speak, engulphed ? In our ancient forests of Gaul and Ger- 
 many stand, strong and serious, slowly and solidly built, the elm or 
 the oak that forest hero, with kindly arms and heart of steel, which 
 has conquered eight or ten centuries, and which, when felled by man
 
 HARMONIES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE. 
 
 207 
 
 and associated with Iris labours, endows them with the eternity of 
 the works of nature. 
 
 As the tree, so the man. May it be given us to resemble it to 
 resemble that mighty but pacific oak, whose powerful absorption has 
 concentrated every element, and made of it the grave, useful, endur- 
 ing individual the solid personality of which all men confidently/ 
 demand a support, a shelter ; which stretches forth its helpful arms 
 to the divers animal tribes, and shelters them with its foliage ! With 
 a thousand voices they gratefully enchant, by day and night, the still 
 majesty of this aged witness of the years. The birds thank it from 
 their hearts, and delight its paternal shades with song, love, and 
 youth.
 
 208 
 
 HARMONIES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE. 
 
 Indestructible vigour of the climates of the West ? Why doth this 
 oak live through a thousand years ? Because it is ever young. 
 
 / It is the oak which chronicles the commencement of spring. For 
 us the emotion of the new life does not begin when all nature clothes 
 itself in the uniform verdure of the meaner vegetation. It commences 
 only when we see the oak, from the woody foliage of the past, which it 
 still retains, gathering its fresh leaves ; when the elm, permitting itself 
 
 to be outstripped by inferior trees, tints with a light green the severe 
 delicacy of its airy branches, clearly defined against the sky. 
 
 Then, then, Nature speaks to all her potent voice troubles even 
 the soul of sages. And why not ? Is she not holy ? And this sur- 
 prising awakening, which has stirred life every where from the hard 
 dumb heart of the oaks, even to their lofty crest, where the bird pours 
 out its gladness is it not, as it were, a return of God ?
 
 HARMONIES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE. 
 
 209 
 
 I have lived in climates where the olive and the orange preserve 
 an eternal bloom. Without ignoring the beauty of these favoured 
 trees, and their special distinction, I could never accustom myself to 
 the monotonous permanency of their unchangeable garb, whose ver- 
 dure responded to the heaven's unchangeable sapphire. I was ever in 
 a state of expectancy, waiting for a renewal which never came. The 
 days passed by, but were always identical. Not a leaf the less on 
 the ground, not a cloudlet in the sky. Mercy, I exclaimed, O ever- 
 lasting Nature ! To the changeful heart which thou hast given me, 
 grant a little change. Rain, mire, storm, I accept them all ; so that 
 from sky or earth the idea of movement may return to me the idea 
 of renovation ; that every year the spectacle of a new creation may 
 refresh my heart, may restore to me the hope that my soul shall 
 enjoy a similar resurrection, and, by the alternations of sleep, of death, 
 or of winter, create for itself a new spring ! 
 
 Man, bird, all nature, utter the same desire. We exist through 
 change. 
 
 To these forcible alternations of heat, cold, fog, and sun, melau- 
 14
 
 210 
 
 HARMONIES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE. 
 
 eholy and joyaunce, we owe the tempered, the powerful personality of 
 our West. Rain wearies us to-day ; fine weather will come with the 
 morrow. The splendours of the East, the marvels of the Tropics, 
 taken together, are not worth the first violet of Easter, the first song 
 of April, the blossom of the hawthorn, the glee of the young girl who 
 resumes her robes of white. 
 
 In the morning a potent voice, of singular freshness and clearness, 
 of keen metallic timbre, the voice of the mavis, rises aloft, and there 
 is no heart so sick or so sour as to hear it without a smile. 
 
 One spring, on my way to Lyons, among the intertangled vines 
 which the peasants laboured to raise up again, I heard a poor, old, 
 miserable, and blind woman singing, with an accent of extraordinary 
 gaiety, this ancient village lay : 
 
 " Nous quittons nos grands habits, 
 Pour en preiidre de plus petits."
 
 THE EifiD SS THE LABOURER OF HUN.
 
 
 
 H 
 
 THE " miserly agriculturist," is the accurate and 
 forcible expression of Virgil. Miserly, and blind, in 
 truth, for he proscribes the birds which destroy in- 
 sects and protect his crops. 
 
 Not a grain will he spare to the bird which, during 
 } the winter rains, hunted up the future insect, sought 
 out the nests of the larvae, examined them, turned over 
 every leaf, and daily destroyed myriads of future cater- 
 pillars; but sacks of corn to the adult insects, and whole 
 fields to the grasshoppers which the bird would have 
 combated ! 
 
 With his eyes fixed on the furrow, on the present 
 moment, without sight or foresight; deaf to the grand 
 harmony which no one ever interrupts with impunity, 
 lie has everywhere solicited or approved the laws which suppressed the 
 much-needed assistant of his labour, the insect-destroying bird. And
 
 
 214 THE BIRD 
 
 the insects have avenged the bird. It has become necessary to recall 
 in all haste the banished. In the island of Bourbon, for example, a 
 price was set on each martin's head; they disappeared, and then the 
 grasshoppers took possession of the island, devouring, extinguishing, 
 burning up with harsh acridity all that they did not devour. The 
 same thing has occurred in North America with the starling, the pro- 
 tector of the maize. The sparrow even, which attacks the grain, but 
 also defends it the thieving, pilfering sparrow, loaded with so many 
 insults, and stricken with so many maledictions it has been seen 
 that without him Hungary would perish; that he alone could wage 
 the mighty war against the cockchafers and the myriad winged foes 
 which reign in the low-lying lands : his banishment has been revoked, 
 and the courageous militia hastily recalled which, if not strictly dis- 
 ciplined, are not the less the salvation of the country. 
 
 No long time ago, near Rouen, and in the valley of Monville, the 
 crows had for a considerable period been proscribed. The cockchafers, 
 accordingly, profited to such an extent their larvae, multipled ad 
 infinitum, pushed so far their subterranean works that an entire 
 meadow was pointed out to me as completely withered on the surface ; 
 every root of grass or herb was eaten up ; and all the turf, easily 
 detached, could be rolled back on itself just as one raises a 
 carpet. 
 
 All toil, all appeals of man to nature, supposes the intelligence of 
 the natural order. Such is the order, and such the law : Life has 
 / around it and within it its enemy most frequently as its guest the 
 parasite which undermines and cankers it. 
 
 Inert and defenceless life, especially vegetable, deprived of loco- 
 motion, would succumb to it but for the stronger support of the inde- 
 fatigable enemy of the parasite, the merciless pursuer, the winged 
 conqueror of the monsters. 
 
 The war rages without under the Tropics, where they surge up on 
 all sides. Within in our climates, where everything is hidden, more 
 profound, and more mysterious. 
 
 In the exuberant fecundity of the Torrid Zone, the insects, those
 
 AS THE LABOURER OF MAN. 215 
 
 terrible destroyers of plant-life, cany off the superfluous. They are 
 there a necessity. 
 They ravage among 
 the prodigious 
 abundance of spon- 
 taneous plants, of lost seeds, of the 
 fruits which Nature scatters over the 
 wastes. Here, in the narrow field 
 watered by the sweat of man, they gar- 
 ner in his place, devour his labour and 
 its harvest ; they attack even his 
 life. 
 
 Do not say, " Winter is on my side ; 
 it will check the foe." Winter does but 
 slay the enemies which would perish 
 of themselves. It kills especially the 
 ephemera, whose existence was already 
 measured by that of the flower, or the 
 leaf with which it was bound up. But, 
 before dying, the prescient atom assures 
 the safety of its posterity; it finds for it 
 an asylum, conceals and carefully deposits 
 its future, the germ of its reproduction. 
 As eggs, as larvae, or in their own shapes, 
 living, mature, armed, these invisible 
 creatures sleep in the bosom of the earth, 
 awaiting their opportunity. Is she im- 
 movable, this earth ? In the meadows 
 I see her undulate the black miner, 
 the mole, continues her labours. At a 
 higher elevation, in the dry grounds, 
 stretch the subterranean granaries, 
 
 where the philosophical rat, on a good pile of corn, passes the season 
 in patience.
 
 216 THE BIRD 
 
 All this life breaks forth at spring-time. From high, from low, 
 on the right, on the left, these predatory tribes, echelonned by legions 
 which succeed one another and relieve one another each in its month, 
 in its day the immense, the irresistible conscription of nature will 
 march to the conquest of man's works. The division of labour is 
 perfect. Each has his post marked out, and will make no mistake. 
 Each will go straight to his tree or his plant. And such will be their 
 tremendous numbers, that not a leaf but will have its legion. 
 
 What wilt thou do, poor man ? How wilt thou multiply thyself ? 
 Hast thou wings to pursue them ? Hast thou even eyes to see them ? 
 Thou mayest kill them at thy pleasure ; their security is complete : 
 kill, annihilate millions ; they live by thousands of millions ! Where 
 thou triumphest by sword and fire, burning up the plant itself, thou 
 hearest all around the light whirring of the great army of atoms, 
 which gives no heed to thy victory, and destroys unseen. 
 
 Listen. I will give thee two counsels. Weigh them, and adopt 
 the wiser. 
 
 The first remedy for this, if you resolve upon fighting your foe, is to 
 poison everything. Steep your seeds in sulphate of copper ; put your 
 barley under the protection of verdigris. This the foe is unprepared 
 for ; it disconcerts him. If he touches it, he dies or sickens. You, 
 also, it is true, are scarcely flourishing ; your adventurous stratagem 
 may help the plagues which devastate our era. Happy age ! The 
 benevolent labourer poisons at the outset ; this copper-coloured corn, 
 handed over to the baker, ferments with the sulphate ; a simple 
 and agreeable means of " raising" the light pate, to which, perhaps, 
 people would object. 
 
 No ; adopt a better course than this. Take your side. Before 
 so many enemies it is no shame to fall back. Let things go, and fold 
 your arms. Rest, and look on. Be like that brave man who, on 
 the eve of Waterloo, wounded and prostrate, contrived to lift himself 
 up and scan the horizon ; but he saw there Blucher, and the great 
 cloud of the black army. Then he fell back, exclaiming, " They are 
 too many !"
 
 AS THE LABOURER OF MAN. 217 
 
 And how much more right have you to say so ! You are alone 
 against the universal conspiracy of life. You also may exclaim, "They 
 are too many !" 
 
 You insist. See here these fields so full of inspiring hope ; see 
 the humid pastures where I might please myself with watching the 
 cattle lost among the thick herbage. Let us lead thither the herds ! 
 
 They are expected. Without them what would become of those 
 living clouds of insects which love nothing but blood ? The blood of 
 the ox is good ; the blood of man is better. Enter ; seat yourself in 
 their midst; you will be well received, for you are their banquet. 
 These darts, these horns, these pincers, will find an exquisite delicacy 
 in your flesh ; a sanguinary orgie will open on your body for the 
 frantic dance of this famished host, which will not relax at least from 
 want ; you shall see more than one fall away, and die of the 
 intoxicating fountain which he had opened with his dart. Wounded, 
 bleeding, swollen with puffed-up sores, hope for no repose. Others 
 will come, and again others, for ever, and without end. For if the 
 climate is less severe than in the zones of the South, in revenge, the 
 eternal rain that ocean of soft warm water incessantly flooding our 
 meadows hatches in a hopeless fecundity those nascent and greedy 
 lives, which are impatient to rise, to be born, and to finish their career 
 by the destruction of superior existences. 
 
 I have seen, not in the marshes, but on the western heights, those 
 pleasant verdurous hills, clothed with woods or meadows I have 
 seen the pluvial waters repose for lack of outlet ; and then, when 
 evaporated by the sun's rays, leave the earth covered with a rich and 
 abundant animal production slugs, snails, insects of a myriad species, 
 all people of terrible appetite, born with sharp teeth, with formidable^ 
 apparatus, and ingenious machines of* destruction. Powerless against 
 the irruption of an unexpected host which crawled, stirred, ascended, 
 penetrated, had almost eaten up ourselves, we contended with them 
 through the agency of some brave and voracious fowls, which never 
 counted their enemies, and did not criticise, but swallowed them. 
 These Breton and Vendean fowls, inspired with the genius of their
 
 218 
 
 THE BIKD 
 
 country, made their campaign so much the more successfully, because 
 each waged war in its own manner. The black, the gray, and the 
 egg-layer (such were their military titles), marched together in close 
 array, and recoiled not a step ; the dreamer or philosopher preferred 
 skirmishing by himself (chouanner), and accomplished much more 
 work. A superb black cat, the companion of their solitude, studied 
 daily the track of the field mouse and the lizard, hunted the wasp, 
 devoured the Spanish fly, always at some distance in advance of 
 the respectful hens. 
 
 One word more in reference to them, and one regret. Our business 
 being finished, we prepared for our departure. But what would become 
 of them ? Given to a friend, they would assuredly be eaten. We 
 deliberated long. Then, coming to a vigorous decision, according to 
 the ancient creed of savage tribes, who believed that it was sweetest 
 to die by the hands of those we love, and thought that by eating 
 their heroes they themselves became heroic, we made of them, not 
 / without lamentation, a funereal banquet. 
 
 It is a truly grand spectacle to see descend one might almost say 
 from heaven against this frightful swarming of the universal 
 monster-birth which awakens in the spring, hissing, whirring, croak- 
 ing, buzzing, in its huge hunger, the universal saviour, in a hundred
 
 AS THE LABOURER OF MAX. 219 
 
 forms and a hundred legions, differing in arms and character, but 
 all endowed with wings, all sharing a seeming privilege of ubi- 
 quity. 
 
 To the universal presence of the insect, to its ubiquity of numbers, 
 responds that of the bird, of his swiftness, of his wing. The oreat 
 moment is that when the insect, developing itself through the heat, 
 
 meets the bird face to face; the bird multiplied in numbers ; the bird 
 which, having no milk, must feed at this very moment a numerous 
 family with her living prey. Every year the world would be en- 
 dangered if the bird could suckle, if its aliment were the work of an 
 individual, of a stomach. But see, the noisy, restless brood, by ten, 
 twenty, or thirty little bills, cry out for their prey; and the exigency 
 is so great, such the maternal ardour to respond to this demand, that the 
 desperate tomtit, unable to satisfy its score of children with three 
 hundred caterpillars a day, will even invade the nests of other birds 
 and pick out the brains of their young. 
 
 From our windows, which opened on the Luxemburg, we observed 
 every winter the commencement of this useful war of the bird against 
 the insect. We saw it in December inaugurate the year's labour. 
 The honest and respectable household of the thrush, which one might 
 call the leaf- lifter (tourne-femlles), did their work by couples; when 
 the sunshine followed rain, they visited the pools, and lifted the
 
 220 THE BIRD. 
 
 leaves one by one, with skill and conscientiousness, allowing nothing 
 to pass which had not been attentively examined. 
 
 Thus, in the gloomiest months, when the sleep of nature so closely 
 resembles death, the bird continued for us the spectacle of life. Even 
 among the snow, the thrush saluted us when we arose. During our 
 grave winter walks we were always accompanied by the wren, with 
 its golden crest, its short, quick song, its soft and flute-like recall. 
 The more familiar sparrows appeared on our balconies; punctual to 
 the hour, they knew that twice a-day their meal would be ready for 
 them, without any peril to their freedom. 
 
 For the rest, the honest labourers, on the arrival of spring, scrupled 
 to ask our aid. As soon as their young were able to fly, they joy- 
 ously brought them to our windows, as if to thank and bless us.
 
 LfiB811B-THE WOODPECKER.
 
 LABOUR. 
 THE WOODPECKER. 
 
 AMONG the calumnies of which birds 
 have been made the victims, none is more 
 absurd than to say, as it has been said, that 
 the woodpecker, when burrowing among the 
 trees, selects the robust and healthy trunks, 
 those that offer the greatest difficulties, and 
 must increase his toil. Common sense plainly 
 shows that the poor animal, living upon 
 worms and insects, will seek the infirm, the 
 rotten trees, those offering the least resistance, 
 and promising, moreover, the most abun- 
 dant prey. The persistent hostility which 
 he wages against the destructive tribes 
 that would corrupt the vigorous trunk, 
 is a signal service rendered to man. The 
 State owes him, if not the appointment, 
 at least the honorary title, of Conservator 
 of the Forests. But what is the fact ? That for all his reward, 
 ignorant officials have often set a price upon his head !
 
 224 LABOUR. 
 
 But the woodpecker would be no true type of the workman if he 
 were not calumniated and persecuted. His modest guild, spread over 
 the two worlds, serves, teaches, and edifies man. His garb varies ; 
 but the common sign by which he may be recognized is the scarlet 
 hood with which the good artisan generally covers his head, his 
 firm and solid skull. His special tool, which is at once pickaxe and 
 auger, chisel and plane, is his square-fashioned bill. His nervous 
 limbs, armed with strong black nails of a sure and firm grasp, seat 
 him securely on his branch, where he remains for whole days, in an 
 awkward attitude, striking always from below upwards. Except in 
 the morning, when he bestirs himself, and stretches his limbs in every 
 direction, like all superior workmen, who allow a few moments' pre- 
 paration in order not to interrupt themselves afterwards, he digs and 
 digs throughout a long day with singular perseverance. You may 
 hear him still later, for he prolongs his work into the night, and thus 
 gains some additional hours. 
 
 His constitution is well adapted for so laborious a life. His 
 muscles, always stretched, render his flesh hard and leathery. The 
 vesicle of the gall, in him very large, seems to indicate a bilious dis- 
 position, eager and violent in work, but otherwise by no means choleric. 
 
 Necessarily the opinions which men have pronounced on this 
 singular being are widely different. They have judged this great 
 worker well or ill, according as they have esteemed or despised work, 
 according as they themselves have been more or less laborious, and 
 have regarded a sedentary and industrious life as cursed or blessed 
 by Heaven. 
 
 It has often been questioned whether the woodpecker was gay 01 
 melancholy, and various answers have been given perhaps all equally 
 good according to species and climate. I can easily believe that 
 Wilson and Audubon, who chiefly refer to the golden-winged wood- 
 pecker of the Carolinas, on the threshold of the Tropics, have found 
 him very lively and restless ; this woodpecker gains his livelihood 
 without toil in a genial country, rich in insects ; his curved elegant 
 beak, less rugged than the beak of our species, seems to indicate that he
 
 THE WOODPECKER. 
 
 225 
 
 works in less rebellious woods. But the woodpecker of France and 
 Germany, compelled to pierce the 
 bark of our ancient European oaks, 
 possesses quite a different instrument 
 a hard, strong, and heavy bill. It 
 is probable that he devotes more 
 hours to his toil than his American 
 congener. He is, as a labourer, 
 bound by hard conditions, working 
 more and earning less. In dry 
 seasons especially, his lot is wretched; 
 his prey flies from him, and retires to 
 an extreme distance, in search of 
 moisture. Therefore he invokes the 
 rain, with constant cry: "Plieu! 
 Plieu !" It is thus that the common 
 people interpret his note ; in Bur- 
 gundy he is called Tlie Miller's Pro- 
 curer; woodpecker and miller, if the 
 rain should not descend, would stand 
 still and run the risk of starving.. 
 
 One eminent ornithologist, Tous- 
 senel, an excellent and ingenious 
 observer, seems to me mistaken in 
 his judgment of the woodpecker's 
 character, when he pronounces him a 
 lively bird. For on what grounds ? 
 On the amusing curvets in which he 
 indulges to gain the heart of his love. 
 But who among us, or among more 
 serious beings, in such a case, does 
 not do the same ? He calls him also 
 a tumbler and a clown, because at his appearance he wheeled round 
 rapidly. For a bird whose powers of flight are very limited, ib was 
 
 15
 
 226 LABOUR. 
 
 perhaps the wisest course to adopt, especially in the presence of such 
 an admirable shot. And this proved his good sense. A vulgar 
 sportsman, the woodpecker, which knows the coarseness of his flesh, 
 would have suffered to approach him. But in the presence of such a 
 connoisseur and so keen a friend of birds, he had great cause for fear, 
 lest he should be impaled to adorn his collection. 
 
 I beg this illustrious writer to consider also the moral habitudes and 
 disposition which would be acquired from such continuous toil. The 
 papillonne counts for nothing here, and the length of such working- 
 days far exceeds the convenient limit of what Fourier calls agreeable 
 labour. The woodpecker toils alone and on his own account ; un- 
 doubtedly he makes no complaint ; he feels that it is for his interest 
 to work hard and to work long. Firm on his robust legs, though in 
 a painful attitude, he remains at his post all day, and even far into 
 the night. Is he happy ? I believe so. Gay ? I doubt it. Melan- 
 choly ? By no means. The passionate toil which renders us so 
 grave, compensates by driving away sorrow. 
 
 The unintelligent artisan, or the poor over-wrought slave, whose 
 only idea of happiness lies in immobility, would not fail to see in a 
 life of such assiduity the malediction of Fate. The artisans of the 
 German towns assert that he is a baker, who, in the indolent ease of 
 his counting-house, starved the poor, deceived them, sold them false 
 weight. And now, as a punishment, he works, they say, and must 
 work until the day of judgment, living on insects only. 
 
 A poor and unmeaning explanation ! I prefer the old Italian 
 fable : Picus, son of Time or Saturn, was an austere hero, who 
 scorned the deceitful love and illusions of Circe. To avoid her, 
 he took to himself wings, and flew into the forest. If he bears no 
 longer a human figure, he has what is better a foreseeing and 
 prophetic genius; he knows that which is to come, he sees that 
 which is to be. 
 
 A very grave opinion upon the woodpecker is pronounced by the 
 Indians of North America. These heroes discern very clearly that the 
 woodpecker himself was a hero. They are partial to wealing the head
 
 THE WOODPECKER. 227 
 
 of one which they name " the wiry-billed woodpecker," and believe that 
 his ardour and courage will pass into them. A well-founded belief, 
 as experience has shown. The puniest heart must feel strengthened 
 which sees ever present before it this eloquent symbol, saying: "I 
 shall be like it in strength and constancy." 
 
 Only it should be noted that, if the woodpecker be a hero, he is 
 the peaceful hero of labour. He asks nothing more. His beak, 
 which might be very formidable, and his powerful spurs, are never- 
 theless prepared for everything else but combat. His toil so completely 
 absorbs him, that no competition could stimulate him to fight. It 
 engulfs him, requires of him all the exertion of his faculties. 
 
 \ \ .".' ., '<?- I"- /I 
 
 ^<j&v ; |^;.- 
 
 Varied and complex is his work. At first the skilful forester, full 
 of tact and experience, tests his tree with his hammer I mean his
 
 228 LABOUR. 
 
 beak. He listens, as the tree resounds, to what it has to say, to 
 what there is within it. The process of auscultation, but recently 
 adopted in medicine, has been the woodpecker's leading act for some 
 thousands of years. He interrogates, sounds, detects by his ear the 
 cavernous voids which the substance of the tree presents. Such an 
 one, sound and vigorous in appearance, which, on account of its 
 gigantic size, has been marked out for the shipwright's axe, the wood- 
 pecker, by his peculiar skill, condemns as worm-eaten, rotten, sure to 
 fail in the most fatal manner possible, to bend in construction, or 
 to spring a leak and so produce a wreck. 
 
 The tree thoroughly tested, the woodpecker selects it for himself, 
 and establishes himself upon it ; there he will exercise his art. The 
 trunk is hollow, therefore rotten, therefore populous ; a tribe of 
 insects inhabits it. You must strike at the gate of the city. The 
 citizens in wild tumult attempt to escape, either through the walls of 
 the city, or below, through the drains. Sentinels should be posted ; 
 but in their default the solitary besieger watches, and from moment 
 to moment looks behind to snap up the passing fugitives, making use, 
 for this purpose, of an extremely long tongue, which he darts to and 
 fro like a miniature serpent. The uncertainty of the sport, and the 
 hearty appetite which it stimulates, fill him with passion ; his glance 
 pierces through bark and wood ; he is present amidst the terrors and 
 the counsels of his enemies. Sometimes he descends very suddenly, 
 in alarm lest a secret issue should save the besieged. 
 
 A tree externally sound, but rotten and corrupt within, is a 
 terrible image for the patriot who dreams over the destinies of cities. 
 Rome, at the epoch when the republic begun to totter, feeling itself 
 like to such a tree, trembled one day as a woodpecker alighted on 
 the tribunal in open forum, under the very hand of the praetor. The 
 people were profoundly moved, and revolved the gloomiest thoughts. 
 But the augurs, who had been summoned, arrived : if the bird escaped 
 with impunity, the republic would perish ; if he remained, he threat- 
 ened only him who held the bird in his hand the prsetor. This 
 magistrate, who was ^Elius Tubero, killed the bird immediately,
 
 THE WOODPECKER. 229 
 
 died soon afterwards, and the republic endured six centuries 
 longer. 
 
 This is grand, not ridiculous. It endured through this noble 
 appeal to the citizen's devotion. It endured through this silent 
 response given to it by a great heart. Such actions are fertile ; they 
 make men and heroes ; they prolong *the life of states. 
 
 To return to our bird : this workman, this solitary, this sublime 
 prophet does not escape the universal law. Twice a-year he grows 
 demented, throws off his austerity, and, shall it be said, becomes 
 ridiculous. Happy he among men who plays the fool but twice 
 a-year ! 
 
 Ridiculous ! He is not so because he Joves, but because he loves 
 comically. Gorgeously arrayed, and in .his finest plumage, relieving 
 his somewhat sombre garb by his beautiful scarlet yrecque, he whirls 
 round his lady-love ; and his rivals do the same. 
 
 But these innocent workers, designed for the most serious labours 
 strangers to the arts of the fashionable world, to the graces of the 
 humming-birds know not in what way to manifest their duty, and 
 present their very humble homage but by the most uncouth cur- 
 vettings. Uncouth at least in our opinion ; they are scarcely so in 
 the eyes of the object of these attentions. They please her, and this 
 is all that is needed. The queen's choice declared, no battle can 
 take place. Admirable are the manners of these good and worthy 
 workmen. The others retire aggrieved, but with delicacy cherish 
 religiously the right of liberty. 
 
 Do the fortunate suitor and his fair one, think you, air their idle 
 loves wandering through the forests ? Not at all. They instantly 
 begin to work. " Show me thy talents," says she, " and let me see 
 that I have not deceived myself." What an opportunity for an 
 artist ! She inspires his genius. From a carpenter he becomes a 
 joiner, a cabinet-maker ; from a cabinet-maker, a geometer ! The 
 regularity of forms, that divine rhythm, appears to him in love. 
 
 It is exactly the renowned history of the famous blacksmith of 
 Anvers, Quintin Matsys, who loved a painter's daughter, and who, to
 
 230 
 
 LABOUR. 
 
 win her love, became the greatest painter of Flanders in the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 " Of Vulcan swart, love an Apelles made." 
 (D'un noir Vulcain, 1'amour fit un Appelle). 
 
 Thus, one morning the woodpecker develops into the sculptor. 
 With severe precision, the perfect roundness which the compass might 
 give, he hollows out the graceful vault of a superb hemisphere. 
 The whole receives the polish of marble and ivory. All kinds of 
 hygienic and strategic precautions are not wanting. A narrow wind- 
 ing entry, whose slope inclines outwards that the water may not 
 penetrate, favours the defence ; it suffices for one head and one 
 courageous bill to close it. 
 
 What heart could resist all these toils ? Who would not accept 
 this artist, this laborious purveyor for domestic wants, this intrepid 
 defender ? Who would not believe herself able to accomplish in 
 
 safety, behind the generous rampart of this devoted champion, the 
 delicate mystery of maternity ? 
 
 So she resists no longer, and behold the pair installed ! There is
 
 THE WOODPECKER. 231 
 
 wanting now but a nuptial chant (Hymen ! O Hymeneae !) It is not 
 the woodpecker's fault if Nature has denied to his genius the muse of 
 melody. At least, in his harsh voice one cannot mistake the im- 
 passioned accents of the heart. 
 
 May they be happy ! May a young and amiable generation 
 spring into life, and mature under their eyes ! Birds of prey shall 
 not easily penetrate here. Only grant that the serpent, the frightful 
 black serpent, may never visit this nest ! Oh, that the child's rough 
 hand may not cruelly crush its sweet hope ! And, above all, may 
 the ornithologist, the friend of birds, keep afar from this spot ! 
 
 If persevering toil, ardent love of family, heroic defence of liberty, 
 could impose respect and arrest the cruel hand of man, no sportsman 
 would touch this noble bird. A young naturalist, who smothered 
 one in order to impale it, has told me that he sickened of the brutal 
 struggle, and suffered a keen remorse ; it seemed to him as if he had 
 committed an assassination. 
 
 Wilson appears to have felt an analogous impression. " The first 
 time," says he, " that I observed this bird, in North Carolina, I 
 wounded him slightly in the wing, and when I caught him he gave 
 a cry exactly like an infant's, but so loud and lamentable that my 
 frightened horse nearly threw me off. I earned him to Wilmington : 
 in passing through the streets, the bird's prolonged cries drew to the 
 doors and windows a crowd of people, especially of women, filled with 
 alarm. I continued my route, and, on entering the court of the 
 hotel, met the master of the house and a crowd of people, alarmed 
 at what they heard. Judge how this alarm increased when I asked 
 for what was needed both by my child and myself. The master 
 remained pale and stupid, and the others were dumb with astonish- 
 ment. After having amused myself at their expense for a minute 
 or two, I revealed my woodpecker, and a burst of universal laughter 
 echoed around. I ascended with it to my chamber, where I left it 
 while I paid attention to my horse's wants. I returned at the end 
 of an hour, and, on opening the door, heard anew the same terrible 
 cry, which this time appeared to originate in grief at being discovered
 
 '232 LABOUR. 
 
 in his attempts to escape. He had climbed along the window almost 
 to the ceiling, immediately above which he had begun to excavate. 
 The bed was covered with large pieces of plaster, the laths of the 
 ceiling were exposed for an area of nearly fifteen square inches, and 
 a hole through which you could pass your thumb was already 
 formed in the skylight ; so that, in the space of another hour, he 
 would certainly have succeeded in effecting an opening. I fastened 
 round his neck a cord, which I attached to the table, and left him 
 I wanted to preserve him alive while I went in search of food. On 
 returning, I could hear that he had resumed his labours, and on my 
 entrance saw that he had nearly destroyed the table to which he 
 had been fastened, and against which he had directed all his wrath. 
 When I wished to take a sketch, he cut me several times with his 
 beak, and displayed so noble and so indomitable a courage that I 
 was tempted to restore him to his native forests. He lived with me 
 nearly three days, refusing all food, and I was present at his death 
 with sincere regret."
 
 SOMG.
 
 THERE is no one who will not have remarked that 
 birds kept in a cage in a drawing-room never fail, if 
 ; visitors arrive and the conversation grows animated, 
 to take a part in it, after their fashion, by chattering 
 or singing. 
 
 It is their universal instinct, even in a condition 
 of freedom. They are the echoes both of God and of 
 man. They associate themselves with all sounds and 
 voices, add their own poesy, their wild and simple 
 rhythms. By analogy, by contrast, they augment 
 v - and complete the grand effects of nature. To the 
 hoarse beating of the waves the sea-bird opposes his shrill strident 
 notes ; with the monotonous murmuring of the agitated trees the turtle- 
 dove and a hundred birds blend a soft sad cadence ; to the awakening
 
 236 THE SONG. 
 
 of the fields, the gaiety of the country, the lark responds with his 
 song, and bears aloft to heaven the joys of earth. 
 
 Thus, then, everywhere, above the vast instrumental concert of 
 nature, above her deep sighs, above the sonorous waves which escape 
 from the divine organ, a vocal music springs and detaches itself 
 that of the bird, almost always in vivid notes, which strike sharply 
 on this solemn base with the ardent strokes of a bow. 
 
 Winged voices, voices of fire, angel voices, emanations of an 
 intense life superior to ours, of a fugitive and mobile existence, which 
 inspires the traveller doomed to a well-beaten track with the serenest 
 thoughts and the dream of liberty. 
 
 Just as vegetable life renews itself in spring by the return of the 
 leaves, is animal life renewed, rejuvenified by the return of the birds, 
 by their loves, and by their strains. There is nothing like it in the 
 southern hemisphere, a youthful world in an inferior condition, which, 
 still in travail, aspires to find a voice. That supreme flower of life 
 and the soul, Song, is not yet given to it. 
 
 The beautiful, the sublime phenomenon of this higher aspect of 
 the world occurs at the moment that Nature commences her voiceless 
 concert of leaves and blossoms, her melodies of March and April, her 
 symphony of May, and we all vibrate to the glorious harmony ; men 
 and birds take up the strain. At that moment the smallest become 
 poets, often sublime songsters. They sing for their companions whose 
 love they wish to gain. They sing for those who hearken to them, 
 and more than one accomplishes incredible efforts of emulation. 
 Man also responds to the bird. The song of the one inspires the 
 other with song. Harmony unknown in tropic climes ! The dazzling 
 colours which there replace this concord of sweet sounds do not create 
 such a mutual bond. In a robe of sparkling gems, the bird is not 
 less alone. 
 
 Far different from this favoured, dazzling, glittering being are 
 the birds of our colder countries, humble in attire, rich in heart, but 
 almost paupers. Few, very few of them, seek the handsome gardens, 
 the aristocratic avenues, the shade of great parks. They all live
 
 THE SONG. 287 
 
 with the peasant. God has distributed them everywhere. Woods 
 and thickets, clearings, fields, vineyards, humid meadows, reedy pools, 
 mountain forests, even the peaks snow-crowned he has allotted each 
 winged tribe to its particular region has deprived no country, no 
 locality, of this harmony, so that man can wander nowhere, can 
 neither ascend so high, nor descend so low, but that he will be greeted 
 with a chorus of joy and consolation. 
 
 Day scarcely begins, scarcely does the stable-bell ring out for 
 the herds, but the wagtail appears to conduct, and frisk and 
 hover around them. She mingles with the cattle, and familiarly 
 accompanies the hind. She knows that she is loved both by man 
 and the beasts, which she defends against insects. She boldly plants 
 herself on the head of the cow, on the back of the sheep. By day 
 she never quits them; she leads them homeward faithfully at 
 evening. 
 
 The water-wagtail, equally punctual, is at her post ; she flutters 
 round the washerwomen ; she hops on her long legs into the water, 
 and asks for crumbs ; by a strange instinct df mimicry she raises and 
 dips her tail, as if to imitate the motion of beating the linen, to do 
 her work also and earn her pay. 
 
 The bird of the fields before all others, the labourer's bird, is the 
 lark, his constant companion, which he encounters everywhere in his 
 painful furrow, ready to encourage, to sustain him, to sing to him of
 
 238 
 
 THE SONG. 
 
 hope. Espoir, hope, is the old device of us Gauls; and for this reason 
 we have adopted as our national bird that humble minstrel, so poorly 
 clad, but so rich in heart and song. 
 
 Nature seems to have treated the lark with harshness. Owing to 
 
 the arrangement of her claws, she 
 cannot perch on the trees. She 
 rests on the ground, close to the 
 poor hare, and with no other 
 shelter than the furrow. How 
 precarious, how riskful a life, at 
 the time of incubation ! What 
 cares must be hers, what inqui- 
 
 etudes ! Scarcely a tuft of grass conceals the mother's fond treasure 
 from the dog, the hawk, or the falcon. She hatches her eggs in haste ; 
 with haste she trains the trembling brood. Who would not believe 
 that the ill-fated bird must share the melancholy of her sad neighbour, 
 the hare ?
 
 THE SONG. 289 
 
 This animal is sad, and fear consumes her. 
 
 " Get animal est triste et la crainte le ronge." 
 
 LA FONTAINE. 
 
 But the contrary has taken place by an unexpected marvel of 
 gaiety and easy forgetfulness, of lightsome indifference and truly 
 French carelessness ; the national bird is scarcely out of peril before 
 she recovers all her serenity, her song, her indomitable glee. Another 
 wonder : her perils, her precarious existence, her cruel trials, do not 
 harden her heart ; she remains good as well as gay, sociable and 
 trustful, presenting a model (rare enough among birds) of paternal 
 love ; the lark, like the swallow, will, in case of need, nourish her 
 sisters. 
 
 Two things sustain and animate her : love and light. She makes 
 love for half the year. Twice, nay, thrice, she assumes the dangerous 
 happiness of maternity, the incessant travail of a hazardous educa- 
 tion. And when love fails, light remains and re-inspires her. 
 The smallest gleam suffices to restore her song. 
 
 She is the daughter of day. As soon as it dawns, when the 
 horizon reddens and the sun breaks forth, she springs from her furrow 
 like an arrow, and bears to heaven's gate her hymn of joy. Hallowed 
 poetry, fresh as the dawn, pure and gleeful as a childish heart ! 
 That powerful and sonorous voice is the reapers' signal. " We must 
 start," says the father; "do you not hear the lark?" She follows 
 them, and bids them have courage ; in the hot sunny hours invites 
 them to slumber, and drives away the insects. Upon the bent head 
 of the young girl half awakened she pours her floods of harmony. 
 
 " No throat," says Toussenel, " can contend with that of the lark 
 in richness and variety of song, compass and velvetiness of timbre, 
 duration and range of sound, suppleness and indefatigability of the 
 vocal chords. The lark sings for a whole hour without half a second's 
 pause, rising vertically in the air to the height of a thousand yards, 
 and stretching from side to side in the realm of clouds to gain a yet 
 loftier elevation, without losing one of its notes in this immense flight. 
 
 ' What nightingale could do as much ?"
 
 240 
 
 THE SONG. 
 
 This hymn of light is a benefit bestowed on the world, and you 
 will meet with it in every country which the sun illuminates. There 
 are as many different species of larks as there are different countries : 
 wood-larks, field-larks, larks of the thickets, of the marshes, the larks 
 of the Crau de Provence, larks of the chalky soil of Champagne, larks 
 of the northern lands in both hemispheres; you will find them, more- 
 over, in the salt steppes, in the plains of Tartary withered by the 
 north wind. Preserving reclamation of kindly nature ; tender con- 
 solations of the love of God !
 
 THE SONG. 2-11 
 
 But autumn has arrived. While the lark gathers behind the plough 
 the harvest of insects, the guests of the northern countries come to 
 visit us : the thrash, punctual to our vintage-time ; and, haughty 
 under his crown, the wren, the imperceptible " King of the North." 
 From Norway, at the season of fogs, he comes, and, under a gigantic 
 fir-tree, the little magician sings his mysterious song, until the extreme 
 cold constrains him to descend, to mingle, and make himself popular 
 among the little troglodytes which dwell with us, and charm our cot- 
 tages by their limpid notes. 
 
 The season grows rough ; all the birds draw nearer man. The 
 honest bullfinches, fond and faithful couples, come, with a short 
 melancholy chirp, to solicit help. The winter-warbler also quits his 
 bushes ; timid as he is, he grows sufficiently bold towards evening to 
 raise outside our doors his trembling voice with its monotonous, 
 plaintive accents. 
 
 " When, in the first mists of October, shortly before winter, the 
 poor proletarian seeks in the forest his pitiful provision of dead wood, 
 a small bird approaches him, attracted by the noise of his axe ; he 
 hovers around him, and taxes his wits to amuse him by singing in 
 a very low voice his softest lays. It is the robin redbreast, which a 
 charitable fairy has despatched to tell the solitary labourer that there 
 is still some one in nature interested in him. 
 
 " When the woodcutter has collected the brands of the preceding 
 day, reduced to cinders; when the chips and the dry branches crackle 
 in the flames, the robin hastens singing to enjoy his share of the 
 warmth, and to participate in the woodcutter's happiness. 
 
 ' When Nature retires to slumber, and folds herself in her mantle 
 of snow ; when one hears no other voices than those of the birds of 
 the North, which define in the air their rapid triangles, or that of the 
 north wind, which roars and engulfs itself in the thatched roof of the 
 cottages, a tiny flute-like song, modulated in softest notes, protests 
 still, in the name of creative work, against the universal weakness, 
 lamentation, and lethargy." 
 
 Open your windows, for pity's sake, and give him a few crumbs, 
 16
 
 242 
 
 THE SONG. 
 
 a handful of grain. If he sees friendly faces, he will enter the room ; 
 he is not insensible to warmth ; cheered by this brief breath of 
 summer, the poor little one returns much stronger into the 
 winter. 
 
 Toussenel is justly indignant that no poet has sung of the robin.* 
 But the bird himself is his own bard ; and if one could transcribe his 
 little song, it would express completely the humble poesy of his life. 
 The one which I have by my side, and which flies about my study, 
 for lack of listeners of his own species, perches before the glass, and, 
 without disturbing me, in a whispering voice utters his thoughts to 
 the ideal robin which he fancies he sees before him. And here is 
 their meaning, so far as a woman's hand has succeeded in preserv- 
 ing it : 
 
 " Je suis le oompagnon 
 Du pauvre bucheron. 
 
 " Je le suis en automne, 
 Au vent des premiers froids, 
 Et c'est moi qui lui donne 
 Le dernier chant des bois. 
 
 " II est triste, et je chante 
 Sous mon deuil mele d'or. 
 Dans la brume pesante 
 Je vois 1'azur encor. 
 
 " Que ce chant te releve 
 Et te garde 1'espoir ! 
 Qu'il te berce d'un reve, 
 Et te ramne au soir ! 
 
 " Mais quand vient la gelee, 
 Je frappe a ton carreau. 
 
 * It is unnecessary to remind the reader that this is true only of French poets. - 
 Translator.
 
 THE SONG. 
 
 243 
 
 11 n'est plus de feuillee, 
 Prends pitie de 1'oiseau ! 
 
 C'est ton ami d'automne 
 Qui revient prs de toi. 
 Le ciel, tout m'abandonne 
 Bucheron, ouvre-moi ! 
 
 Qu'en ce temps de disette, 
 Le petit voyageur, 
 Regale d'une miette, 
 S'endorme a ta chaleur ! 
 
 Je suis le compagnon 
 Du pauvre bucheron." 
 
 I am the companion 
 Of the poor woodcutter. 
 
 I follow him in autumn, 
 
 When the first chill breezes plain ; 
 
 And I it is who warble 
 
 The woodlands' last sweet strain. 
 
 He is sad, and then I sing 
 Under my gilded shroud. 
 And 1 see the gleam of azure 
 Glint through the gathering cloud. 
 
 Oh, may the song inspiring 
 Revive Hope's flame again, 
 And at even guide thee homeward 
 By the magic of its strain ! 
 
 But when the streams are frozen, 
 I tap at thy window-pane 
 Oh. on the bird take pity, 
 Xi>t n leaf, not a herb remain!
 
 244 
 
 THE SONG. 
 
 It is thy autumn comrade 
 Who makes appeal to thee ; 
 By heaven, by all forsaken, 
 Woodman, oh, pity me ! 
 
 Yes, in these days of famine 
 The little pilgrim keep ; 
 On dainty crumbs regale him 
 By the fireside let him sleep ! 
 
 For I am the companion 
 Of the poor woodcutter !
 
 THE
 
 1 
 
 \ 
 
 THE NEST. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS. 
 
 \ 
 
 I AM writing opposite a graceful collection of 
 1 nests of French birds, made for me by a friend, I 
 am able thus to appreciate, to verify the descriptions 
 of authors, to improve them, perhaps, if the very 
 limited resources of style can give any just idea of 
 a wholly special art, less analogous to ours than 
 one would be tempted to believe at the first glance. 
 Nothing in this branch of study can supply the 
 place of actual sight of the objects. You must see 
 and touch ; you will then perceive that all compari- 
 son is false and inaccurate. These things belong 
 to a world apart. Shall we say above, or belmu the 
 works of man ? Neither the one nor the other ; 
 but essentially different, and whose supposed simi- 
 larities (or relations) are only external. 
 
 
 r 
 
 X 
 ^ 
 
 t 
 
 ;
 
 248 THE NEST. 
 
 Let us recollect, at the outset, that this charming object, so much 
 more delicate than words can describe, owes everything to art, to skill, 
 to calculation. The materials are generally of the rudest, and not 
 always those which the artist would have preferred. The instruments 
 are very defective. The bird has neither the squirrel's hand nor the 
 beaver's tooth. Having only his bill and his foot (which by no 
 means serves the purpose of a hand), it seems that the nest should be 
 to him an insoluble problem. The specimens now before my eyes are for 
 the most part composed of a tissue or covering of mosses, small flexible 
 branches, or long vegetable filaments ; but it is less a weaving than 
 a condensation ; a felting of materials, blended, beaten, and welded 
 together with much exertion and perseverance ; an act of great 
 labour and energetic operation, for which the bill and the claw would 
 be insufficient. The tool really used is the bird's own body his 
 breast with which he presses and kneads the materials until he has 
 rendered them completely pliable, has thoroughly mixed them, and 
 subdued them to the general work. 
 
 And within, too, the implement which determines the circular 
 form of the nest is no other than the bird's body. It is by con- 
 stantly turning himself about, and ramming the wall on every side, 
 that he succeeds in shaping the circle. 
 
 Thus, then, his house is his very person, his form, and his im- 
 mediate effort I would say, his suffering. The result is only obtained 
 
 
 by a constantly repeated pressure of his breast. There is not one of 
 these blades of grass but which, to take and retain the form of a
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS. 
 
 249 
 
 curve, has been a thousand and a thousand times pressed against his 
 bosom, his heart, certainly with much disturbance of the respiration, 
 I perhaps with much palpitation. 
 
 -^ It is quite otherwise with the habitat of the quadruped. 
 
 He comes into the world clothed ; what need has he of a nest ? 
 Thus, then, those animals which build or burrow labour for 
 themselves rather than for their young. A skilful miner is 
 the mountain rat, in his oblique tunnel, which saves him from 
 the winter gale. The squirrel, with hand adroit, raises the 
 pretty turret w T hich defends him from the rain. The great 
 engineer of the lakes, the beaver, foreseeing the gathering of 
 the waters, builds up several stages to which he may ascend at 
 pleasure ; but all this is done for the individual. The bird 
 builds for her family. Carelessly did she live in her bright leafy- 
 bower, exposed to every enemy ; but the moment she was no 
 longer alone, the hoped for and anticipated maternity made 
 her an artist. The nest is a creation of love. 
 
 Thus, the work is imprinted with a force of 
 extraordinary will, of a passion singularly persever- 
 ing. You see in it especially this fact, that it is not, 
 like our works, prepared from a model, which 
 settles the plan, conducts and regulates the 
 labour. Here the conception is so thoroughly 
 in the artist, the idea so clearly defined, that, 
 without frame or carcase, without preliminary 
 support, the aerial ship is built up piece by 
 piece, and not a hitch disturbs the ensemble. 
 '', All adjusts itself exactly, symmetrically, in 
 perfect harmony ; a thing in- 
 finitely difficult in such a de- 
 
 10 A
 
 250 THE NEST. 
 
 ficiency of tools, and in this rude effort of concentration and kneading 
 by the mere pressure of the breast. The mother does not trust to 
 the male bird for all this ; but she employs him as her purveyor. 
 He goes in quest of the materials grasses, mosses, roots, or branches. 
 But when the ship is built, when the interior has to be arranged 
 the couch, the household furniture the matter becomes more difficult. 
 Care must be taken that the former be fit to receive an egg peculiarly 
 sensitive to cold, every chilled point of which means for the little 
 one a dead limb. That little one will be born naked. Its stomach, 
 closely folded to the mother's, will not fear the cold ; but the back, 
 still bare, will only be warmed by the bed ; the mother's 
 precaution and anxiety are, therefore, not easily satisfied. 
 The husband brings her some horse-hair, but it is too 
 hard ; it will only serve as an under-stratum, a sort of x 
 elastic mattress. He brings hemp, but that is too 
 cold ; only the silk or silky fibre of certain 
 plants, wool or cotton, are admissible ; or better 
 still, her own feathers, her own down, which 
 she plucks away, and deposits under the nursling. 
 It is interesting to watch the male bird's skil- 
 ful and furtive search for materials ; he is ap- 
 prehensive lest you should learn, by watching 
 him with your eyes, the track to his nest. 
 Frequently, if you look at him, he will take a 
 different road, to deceive you. A hundred 
 ingenious little thefts respond to the mother's 
 desire. He will follow the sheep 
 to collect a little wool. From the 
 poultry-yard he will gather the drop- 
 ped feathers of the mother hen. If 
 the farmer's wife quit for a 
 moment her seat in the porch, 
 and leave behind her distaff 
 or ball of thread, he -.-.C-.-.
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS. 261 
 
 will spy his opportunity, and go off the richer for a thread or 
 two. 
 
 Collections of nests are very recent, not numerous, and, as yet, 
 not rich. In that of Rouen, however, which is remarkable for its 
 arrangement ; in that of Paris, where many very curious specimens 
 may be examined ; you can distinguish already the different industries 
 which create this master-piece of the nest. What is the chronology, 
 the gradual growth of it ? Not from one art to another (not from 
 masonry to weaving, for example) ; but in each separate art, the birds 
 which abandon themselves to it are more or less successful, according 
 to the intelligence of the species, the abundance of material, or the 
 exigency of climate. 
 
 Among the burrowing birds, the booby, and the penguin, whose 
 young, as soon as born, spring into the sea, content themselves with 
 hollowing out a rude hole. But the bee-eater, the sea-swallow, which 
 must educate their young, excavate under the ground a dwelling which 
 is admirably proportioned, and not without some geometrical design. 
 They furnish it, moreover, and strew it with soft yielding substances 
 on which the fledgling will be less sensitive to the hardness or freshness 
 of the humid soil. 
 
 Among the building-birds, the flamingo, which raises a pyramid of 
 mud to isolate her eggs from the inundated earth, and, while standing 
 erect, hatches them under her long legs, is contented with a rude,
 
 252 THE NEST. 
 
 rough work. It is, moreover, a stratagem. The true mason is the 
 swallow, which suspends her house to ours. 
 
 The marvel of its kind is, perhaps, the wonderful carpentry which 
 the thrush executes. The nest, very much exposed under the moist 
 shelter of the vines, is made externally of moss, and amid the sur- 
 rounding verdure escapes the eye; but look within: it is an admirable 
 cupola, neat, polished, shining, and not inferior to glass. You may 
 see yourself in it as in a mirror. 
 
 The rustic art, appropriate to the forests, of timber- work, joining, 
 wood-carving, is attempted on the lowest scale by the toucan, whose 
 bill, though enormous, is weak and thin : he attacks only worm- 
 eaten trees. The woodpecker, better armed, as we have seen, accom- 
 plishes more : he is a true carpenter ; until love inspires him, and he 
 becomes a sculptor. 
 
 Infinite in varieties and species is the guild of basket-makers and 
 weavers. To note the starting-point, the advance, and the climax 
 of an industry so varied, would be a prolonged labour. 
 
 The shore birds plait, to begin with, but very unskilfully. Why 
 should they do better? So warmly clothed by nature with an 
 unctuous and almost impermeable coat of plumage, they have little 
 need to allow for the elements. Their great art is the chase ; always 
 lank, and insufficiently fed, the piscivora are controlled by the wants 
 of a craving stomach. 
 
 The very elementary weaving of the herons and storks is already 
 outstripped, though to no great extent, by the basket-makers of the 
 woods, the jay, the mocking-bird, the bullfinch. Their more numerous 
 brood impose on them more arduous toil. They lay down rude enough 
 foundations, but thereupon plant a basket of more or less elegant 
 design, a web of roots and dry twigs strongly woven together. The 
 cistole delicately interlaces three reeds or canes, whose leaves, mingled 
 with the web, form a safe and mobile base, undulating as the bird 
 rocks. The tomtit suspends her purse-like cradle to a bough, and 
 trusts to the wind to nurse her progeny. 
 
 The canary, the goldfinch, the chaffinch, are skilful fclters. The
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS. 
 
 253 
 
 latter, restless and suspicious, attaches to the finished nest, with much 
 skill and address, a quantity of white lichens, so that the spotted 
 appearance of the whole completely misleads the seeker, and induces 
 him to take this charming and cunningly disguised nest for an acci- 
 dent of vegetation, a fortuitous and natural object. 
 
 Glueing and felting play an important part in the work of the 
 weavers. It would be a mistake to separate these arts too widely. 
 The humming-bird consolidates its little house with the gum of trees. 
 Most birds employ saliva. Some a strange thing, and a subtle 
 invention of love ! here make use of processes for which their organs 
 are least adapted. An American starling contrives to sew the leaves 
 with its bill, and does so very adroitly. 
 
 A few skilful weavers, not satisfied with the bill, bring into play 
 their feet. The chain prepared, they fix it with their feet, while the 
 beak inserts the weft. They become genuine weavers. 
 
 In fine, skill never fails them. It is very astonishing, but
 
 254 
 
 THE NEST. 
 
 implements are wanting.- They are strangely ill-adapted for the 
 work. Most insects, in comparison, are wonderfully furnished with 
 arms and utensils. But these are true workmen, are born workmen. 
 The bird is so but for a time, through the inspiration of love. 

 
 THE COMMUffiTIBS OF BJRflS.
 
 
 THE COMMUNITIES OF BIRDS., 
 
 ESSAYS AT A REPUBLIC. 
 
 
 
 THE more I reflect upon it, the more clearly I per- 
 ceive that the bird, unlike the insect, is not an industrial 
 animal. He is the poet of nature, the most independent 
 of created beings, with a sublime, an adventurous, but 
 on the whole an ill-protected existence. 
 
 Let us penetrate into the wild American forests, and 
 examine the means of safety which these isolated beings 
 U invent or possess. Let us compare the bird's resources, the 
 efforts of his genius, with the inventions of his neighbour, 
 man, who inhabits the same localities. The difference does 
 honour to the bird ; human invention is always acting on the 
 offensive. While the Indian has fashioned a club and a toma- 
 ' hawk, the bird has built only a nest. ' 
 
 For decency, warmth, and elegant gracefulness, the nest is in every 
 respect superior to the Indian's wigwam or the Negro's hut, which, 
 frequently, in Africa, is nothing but a baobab hollowed by time. 
 
 17
 
 258 
 
 THE COMMUNITIES OF BIRDS. 
 
 The negro has not yet invented the door ; his hut remains open. 
 Against the nocturnal forays of wild beasts, he obstructs the entrance 
 with thorns. 
 
 Nor does the bird know how to close his nest. What shall be 
 its 'defence? A great and terrible question. 
 
 He makes the entry narrow and tortuous. If he selects a natural 
 nest, as the wryneck does, in the hollow of a tree, he contracts the 
 opening by skilful masonry. Many, like the pine-pine, build a double 
 nest in two apartments : the mother sits in the alcove ; in the vesti- 
 bule watches tho father, an attentive sentinel, to repulse invasion. 
 
 What enemies has he to fear ! Serpents, men or apes, squirrels ! 
 And what do I say ? The birds themselves ! This people, too, has 
 its robbers. His neighbours sometimes assist a feeble bird to recover 
 his property, to expel by force the unjust usurper. Naturalists assure 
 us that the rooks (a kind of crow) carry further the spirit of justice. 
 They do not pardon a young couple who, to complete their establish- 
 ment the sooner, rob the materials " the movables" of another nest. 
 
 
 They assemble in a troop of eight or ten to rend in fragments the 
 nest of the criminals, and completely destroy that house of theft. And 
 punished thieves are driven afar, and forced to begin all over again.
 
 ESSAYS AT A REPUBLIC. 2C9 
 
 Is there not here an idea of property, and of the sacred rights of 
 labour ? 
 
 Where shall they find securities, and how assure a commencement 
 of public order? It is curious to know in what way the birds have 
 resolved the question. 
 
 Two solutions presented themselves. The first was that of n*soci- 
 at'ion the organization of a government which should concentrate 
 force, and by the reunion of the weak form a defensive power. The 
 second (but miraculous? impossible? imaginative?) would have been 
 the realization of the <>/<// r/7// of Aristophanes, the constraction of 
 a dwelling-place guarded by its lightness from the unwieldy brigands 
 of the air, and inaccessible to the approaches of the brigands of the earth 
 the hunter, the serpent. 
 
 These two things the one difficult, the other apparently im- 
 possible the bird has realized. 
 
 At first, association and government. Monarchy is the inferior 
 venture. Just as the apes have a king to conduct each band, several 
 species of birds, especially in dangerous emergencies, appear to follow . 
 a chief. 
 
 The ant-eaters have a king ; so have the birds of paradise. The 
 tyrant, an intrepid little bird of extraordinary audacity, affords his 
 protection to some larger species, which follow and confide in him. It 
 is asserted that the noble hawk, repressing its instincts of prey for 
 certain species, allows the trembling families which trust in his 
 generosity to nestle under and around him. 
 
 But the safest fellowship is that between equals. The ostrich, the 
 penguin, a crowd of species, unite for this purpose. Several kinds, 
 associating for the purpose of travel, form, at the moment of emigration, 
 into temporary republics. We know the good understanding, the 
 republican gravity, the perfect tactic of the storks and cranes. Others, 
 smaller in size or less completely armed in climates, moreover, where 
 nature, cruelly prolific, engenders without pause their formidable foes 
 place their abodes close together, but do not mingle them, and under a 
 common roof, living in separate partitions, form veritable hives.
 
 THE COMMUNITIES OF BIRDS 
 
 The description given by Paterson appeared fabulous ; but it has 
 been confirmed by Levaillant, who frequently encountered in Africa, 
 
 studied, and investigated the strange 
 community. The engraving given in 
 the " Architecture of Birds" enables the 
 reader more readily to comprehend his 
 narration. It is the image of an im- 
 mense umbrella planted on a tree, and 
 shading under its common roof more 
 than three hundred habitations. " I 
 caused it to be brought to me," says 
 Levaillant, " by several men, who set it 
 on a vehicle. I cut it with an axe, 
 \ and saw that it was in the main a mass 
 \ of Booschmannie grass, without any 
 I mixture, but so strongly woven together 
 f j that it was impossible for the rain to 
 i penetrate. This is only the framework 
 of the edifice ; each bird constructs for 
 himself a separate nest under the com- 
 mon pavilion. The nests occupy only the 
 reverse of the roof; the upper part remains 
 empty, without, however, being useless ; for, 
 raised more than the remainder of the pile, 
 it gives to the whole a sufficient inclination, 
 and thus preserves each little habitation. 
 In two words, let the reader figure to him- 
 self a great oblique and irregular roof, whose 
 edge in the interior is garnished with nests ranged 
 close to one another, and he will have an exact 
 idea of these singular edifices. 
 
 " Each nest is three or four inches in dia- 
 meter, which is sufficiently large for the bird ; 
 but as they are in close contact around the roof, they appear to the
 
 ESSAYS AT A REPUBLIC. 261 
 
 eye to form but a single edifice, and are only separated by a small 
 opening which serves as an entry to the nest ; and one entrance 
 frequently is common to three nests, one of which is placed at the 
 bottom, and the others on each side. It has 320 cells, and will hold 
 640 inhabitants, if each contains a couple, which may be doubted. 
 Eveiy time, however, that I have aimed at a swarm, I have killed the 
 same number of males and females." 
 
 A laudable example, and worthy of imitation ! I wish I could 
 but believe that the fraternity of those poor little ones was a suffi- 
 cient protection. Their number and their noise may sometimes alarm 
 the enemy, disturb the monster, make him take another direction. 
 But if he should persist ; if, strong in his scaly skin, the boa, deaf to 
 their cries, mounts to the attack, invades the city at the time when 
 the fledglings have as yet no wings for flight, their numbers then can 
 but multiply the victims. 
 
 There remains the idea of Aristophanes, the aerial city to isolate 
 it from earth and water, and build in the air. 
 
 This is a stroke of genius. And to carry it out is needed the 
 miracle of the two foremost powers in the world- love and fear. 
 
 Of the most vivid fear ; of that which freezes your blood : if, 
 peering through a hole in a tree, the black flat head of a cold reptile 
 rises and hisses in your face, though you are a man, and a brave man, 
 you tremble. 
 
 How much more must the little, feeble, disarmed creature, sur- 
 prised in its nest, and unable to make use of its wings how much 
 more must it tremble, and sink panic-stricken ! 
 
 The invention of the aerial city took place in the land of ser- 
 pents. 
 
 Africa, the realm of monsters, in its horrible arid wastes, sees 
 them cover the earth. Asia, on the burning shore of Bombay, in her 
 forests where the mud ferments, makes them swarm, and fatten, and 
 swell with venom. In the Moluccas they are innumerable. 
 
 Thence came the inspiration of the Loxia pensilis (the grosbeak 
 of the Philippines). Such is the name of the great artist.
 
 2G2 
 
 THE COMMUNITIES OF BIRDS. 
 
 He chooses a bamboo growing close to the water. To the branches 
 of this tree he delicately suspends some vegetable fibres. He knows 
 beforehand the weight of the nest, and never errs. To the threads 
 he attaches, one by one (not supporting himself on anything, but 
 working in the air) some sufficiently strong grasses. The task is 
 long and fatiguing ; it presupposes an infinite amount of patient 
 courage. 
 
 The vestibule alone is nothing less than a cylinder of twelve to 
 fifteen feet, which hangs over the water, the opening being below, so 
 that one enters it ascending. The upper extremity may be compared 
 to a gourd or an inflated bag, like a chemist's retort. Sometimes five 
 or six hundred nests of this kind hang to a single tree. 
 
 Such is my city of the air ; not a dream and a phantasy, like that 
 of Aristophanes, but actual, realized, and answering the three condi- 
 tions : security both on the side of land and water, and inaccessibility 
 to the robbers of the air through its narrow openings, where one can 
 only enter by ascending with great difficulty. 
 
 Now, that which was said to Columbus when he defied his guests 
 to make an egg stand upright, you perhaps will say to the ingenious 
 bird in reference to his suspended city. You will observe, " It was 
 very simple." To which the bird will reply, like Columbus, " Why did 
 you not discover it?"
 
 v 
 
 EDUCATION.
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 BEHOLD, then, the nest made, and protected by 
 every prudential means which the mother can devise. 
 She rests upon her perfected work, and dreams of the 
 new guest which it shall contain to-morrow. 
 
 At this hallowed moment, ought not we, too, 
 to reflect and ask ourselves what it is this mother's 
 heart contains ? 
 
 A soul ? Shall we dare to say that this ingenious 
 architect, this tender mother, has a soul ? 
 
 Many persons, nevertheless, full of sense and sym- 
 pathy, will denounce, will reject this very natural idea 
 as a scandalous hypothesis. 
 
 Their heart would incline them towards it ; their 
 mind leads them to repel it ; their mind, or at least 
 their education, the idea which, from an early age, has been impressed 
 upon them.
 
 266 EDUCATION. 
 
 Beasts are only machines, mechanical automata ; or if we think 
 we can detect in them some glimmering rays of sensibility and 
 reason, those are solely the effect of instinct. But what is instinct ? 
 A sixth sense I know not what which is undefinable, which has 
 been implanted in them, not acquired by themselves a blind force 
 which acts, constructs, and makes a thousand ingenious things, with- 
 out their being conscious of them, without their personal activity 
 counting for aught. 
 
 If it is so, this instinct would be invariable, and its works immov- 
 ably regular, which neither time nor circumstances would ever change. 
 
 Indifferent minds distracted, busy about other matters which 
 have no time for observation, accept this statement upon parole. 
 Why not ? At the first glance certain actions and also certain works 
 of animals appear almost regular. To come to a different conclusion, 
 more attention, perhaps, is needed, more time and study, than the 
 question is fairly worth. 
 
 Let us adjourn the dispute, and see the object itself. Let us 
 take the humblest example, an individual example ; let us appeal to 
 our eyes, our own observation, such as each one of us can make with 
 the most vulgar of the senses. 
 
 Perhaps the reader will permit me here to introduce, in all 
 honesty and simpleness, the journal of my canary, Jonquille, as it was 
 written hour by hour from the birth of her first child ; a journal of 
 remarkable exactness, and, in short, an authentic register of birth. 
 
 " It must be stated, at the outset, that Jonquille was born in a 
 cage, and had not seen how nests were made. As soon as I saw her 
 disturbed, and became aware of her approaching maternity, I frequently 
 opened her door, and allowed her freedom to collect in the room the 
 materials of the bed the little one would stand in need of. She gathered 
 them up, indeed, but without knowing how to employ them. She 
 put them together, and stored them in a corner of her cage. It was 
 very evident that the art of construction was not innate in her, that 
 (exactly like man) the bird does not know until it has learned.
 
 EDUCATION. 267 
 
 " I gave her the nest ready made, at least the little basket which 
 forms the framework and walls of the structure. Then she made the 
 mattress, and felted the interior coating, but in a very indifferent 
 manner. Afterwards she sat on her egg for sixteen days witli a 
 perseverance, a fervour, a maternal devotion which were astonishing, 
 scarcely rising for a few minutes in the day from her fatiguing posi- 
 tion, and only when the male was ready to take her place. 
 
 " At noon on the sixteenth day the shell was broken in two, and 
 we saw, struggling in the nest, a pair of little wings without feathers, 
 a couple of tiny feet, a something which struggled to rid itself entirely 
 of its envelopment. The body was one large stomach, round as a ball. 
 The mother, with great eyes, outstretched neck, and fluttering wings, 
 from the edge of the basket looked at her child, and looked at me 
 also, as if to say : ' Do not come near!' 
 
 " Except some long down on the wings and head, it was com- 
 pletely naked. 
 
 " On this first day she only gave it some drink. It opened, how- 
 ever, already a bill of good proportions. 
 
 " From time to time, that it might breathe the more easily, 
 she moved a little, then replaced it under her wing, and nibbed it 
 gently. 
 
 " The second day it ate but a very light beakful of chick weed, 
 well prepared, brought in the first place by the father, received by 
 the mother, and transmitted by her with short, quick chirps. In 
 all probability this was given rather for medicinal purposes than as 
 food. 
 
 " So long as the nursling has all it requires, the mother permits 
 the male bird to fly to and fro, to go and come, to attend to his 
 occupations. But as soon as it asks for more, the mother, with her 
 sweetest voice, summons the purveyor, who fills his beak, arrives in 
 all haste, and transmits to her the food. 
 
 " The fifth day the eyes are less prominent ; on the sixth, in the 
 morning, feathers stretch along the wings, and the back grows darker ; 
 on the eighth it opens its eyes when called, and begins to stutter :
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 the father ventures to nourish it. The mother takes some 
 relaxation, and frequently absents herself. She often perches 
 on the rim of the nest, and lovingly contemplates her off- 
 spring. But the latter stirs, feels the need of movement. Pool- 
 mother ! in a little while it will escape thee. 
 
 " In this first education of the still passive and elementary life, 
 as in the second (and active, that of flight), of which I have already 
 spoken, one fact, evident and clearly discernible at every moment, 
 was, that eveiything was proportioned with infinite prudence 
 to the condition least foreseen, a condition essentially variable, the 
 nursling's individual strength ; the quantity, quality, and mode of 
 preparation of the food, the cares of warmth, friction, cleanliness, 
 were all ordered with a skill and an attention to detail, modified 
 according to circumstance, such as the most delicate and provident 
 woman could hardly have surpassed. 
 
 " When I saw her heart throbbing violently, and her eye kindling 
 as she gazed on her precious treasure, I exclaimed : ' Could I do 
 otherwise near the cradle of my son ?' " 
 
 Ah, if she be a machine, what am I myself? and who will then 
 prove that I am a person ? If she has not a soul, who will answer 
 to me for the human soul ? To what thereafter shall we trust ? And 
 is not all this world a dream, a phantasmagoria, if, in the most
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 2C9 
 
 individual actions, actions the most plainly reasoned over and calcu- 
 lated upon, I am to conclude there is nothing but a lack of reason, a 
 mechanism, an "automatism," a species of pendulum which sports 
 with life and thought ? 
 
 Note that our observations were made on a captive, who worked 
 in fatal and predetermined conditions of dwelling-place, nourishment, 
 &c. But how, if her action had been more evidently chosen, willed, 
 and meditated ; if all this had transpired in the freedom of the forests, 
 or she had had cause to disquiet herself about many other circum- 
 stances which captivity enabled her to ignore ? I am thinking 
 especially of the anxiety for security, which, for the bird in savage 
 life, is the foremost of all cares, and which more than anything else 
 exercises and develops her free genius. 
 
 This first initiation into life, of which I have just given an 
 example, is followed by what I shall call the professional education ; 
 every bird has a vocation. 
 
 This education is more or less arduous, according to the medium 
 and the circumstances in which each species is placed. That of 
 fishing, for instance, is simple enough for the penguin, which, in her 
 
 clumsiness, finds it difficult to conduct her brood to the sea ; its great 
 nurse attends the little one, and offers it the food all ready ; it
 
 070 EDUCATION. 
 
 has but to open its bill. With the duck, this education or training 
 is more complex. I observed one summer, on a lake in Normandy, 
 a duck, followed by her brood, giving them their first lesson. The 
 nurslings, riotous and greedy, asked but for food. The mother, yield- 
 ing to their cries, plunged to the bottom of the water, reappearing 
 with some small worm or little fish, which she distributed impartially, 
 never giving twice in succession to the same duckling ! 
 
 In this picture the most touching figure was the mother, whose 
 stomach undoubtedly was also craving, but who retained nothing for 
 herself, and seemed happy in the sacrifice. Her visible desire was to 
 accustom her family to do as she did, to dive under the water in- 
 trepidly to seize their prey. With a voice almost gentle, she implored 
 this action of courageous confidence. I had the happiness of seeing 
 the little ones plunge in, one after another, to the depth of the black 
 abyss. Their education was just on the eve of completion. 
 
 This is but a simple training, and for one of the inferior vocations. 
 There remains to speak of that of the arts: of the art of flight, the 
 art of song, the art of architecture. Nothing is more complex than 
 the education of certain singing birds. The perseverance of the 
 father, the docility of the young, are worthy of all admiration. 
 
 And this education extends beyond the family-circle. The night- 
 ingales, the chaffinches, while still young or unskilful, know how to 
 listen to, and profit by, the superior bird which has been allotted to 
 them as their instructor. In those Russian palaces where flourishes 
 the noble Oriental partiality for the bulbul's song, you see everywhere 
 these singing-schools. The master nightingale, in his cage suspended 
 in the centre of a saloon, has his scholars ranged around him in their 
 respective cages. A certain sum per hour is paid for each bird 
 brought here to learn his lesson. Before the master sings they chatter 
 and gossip among themselves, salute and recognize one another. But 
 as soon as the mighty teacher, with one imperious note, like that of 
 a sonorous steel bell, has imposed silence, you see them listen with a 
 sensible deference, then timidly repeat the strain. The master com- 
 placently returns to the principal passages, corrects, and gently sets
 
 EDUCATION. 271 
 
 them right. A few then grow bolder, and, by some felicitous chords, 
 essay to supply the harmony to the dominant melody. 
 
 An education so delicate, so varied, so complex, is it that of a 
 machine, of a brute reduced to instinct ? Who can refuse in this to 
 acknowledge a soul ? 
 
 Open your eyes to the evidence. Throw aside your prejudices, 
 your traditional and derived opinions. Preconceived ideas and dog- 
 matic theories apart, you cannot offend Heaven by restoring a soul 
 to the beast.* How much grander the Creator's work if he has 
 created persons, souls, and wills, than if he has constructed 
 machines ! 
 
 Dismiss -your pride, and acknowledge a kindred in which there 
 is nothing to make a devout mind ashamed. What are these ? They 
 are your broth ere. 
 
 What are they ? embryo souls, souls especially set apart for 
 certain functions of existence, candidates for the more general and 
 more widely harmonic life to which the human soul has attained. 
 
 When will they arrive thither ? and how ? God has reserved to 
 himself these mysteries. 
 
 
 All that we know is this : that he summons them them also 
 to mount higher and yet higher. 
 
 * The reader must not identify the translator with these opinions, which, however, he 
 did not feel at liberty to modify or omit.
 
 272 EDUCATION. 
 
 They are, without metaphor, the little children of Nature, the 
 nurslings of Providence, aspiring towards the light in order to act 
 and think ; stumbling now, they by Degrees shall advance much 
 further. 
 
 " pauvre enfantelet ! clu fil de tes pensees 
 L'echevelet n'est encore debrouille.'' 
 
 Poor feeble child ! not yet of thy thought's thread 
 Is the entangled skein unravelled. 
 
 Souls of children, in truth, but far gentler, more resigned, more 
 patient than those of human children. See with what silent good 
 humour most of them (like the horse) support blows, and wounds, 
 and ill-treatment ! They all know how to endure disease and suffer 
 death. They retire apart, surround themselves with silence, and lie 
 down in concealment ; this gentle patience often supplies them with 
 the most efficacious remedies. If not, they accept their destiny, and 
 pass away as if they slept. 
 
 Can they love as deeply as we love ? How shall we doubt it, 
 when we see the most timid suddenly become heroic in defence of 
 their young and their family ? The devotedness of the man who 
 braves death for his children you will see exemplified every day in 
 the martin, which not only resists the eagle, but pursues him with 
 heroical ardour. 
 
 Would you wish to observe two things wonderfully analogous ? 
 Watch on the one side the woman's delight at the first step of her 
 infant, and on the other the swallow at the first flight of her little 
 nursling. 
 
 You see in both the same anxiety, the same encouragements, 
 examples, and counsels, the same pretended security and lurking fear, 
 the trembling "Take courage, nothing is more easy;" in truth, the 
 two mothers are inwardly shivering. 
 
 The lessons are curious. The mother raises herself on her wings; 
 the fledgling regards her intently, and also raises himself a little ; 
 then you see her hovering he looks, he stirs his wings. All this
 
 EDUCATION. 273 
 
 goes well, for it takes place in the nest the difficulty begins when 
 he essays to quit it. She calls him, she shows him some little dainty 
 tit-bit, she promises him a reward, she attempts to draw him forth 
 with the bait of a fly. 
 
 Still the little one hesitates. And put yourself in his place. 
 You have but to move a step in the nursery, between your nurse 
 and your mother, where, if you fell, you would fall upon cushions. 
 This bird of the church, which gives her first lesson in flying from 
 the summit of the spire, can scarcely embolden her son, perhaps can 
 scarcely embolden herself at the decisive moment. Both, I am sure 
 of it, measure more than once with their glances the abyss beneath, 
 and eye the ground. I, for one, declare to you, the spectacle is 
 moving and sublime. It is an urgent need that he should trust his 
 mother, that she should have confidence in the wing of the little one 
 who is still a novice. From both does Heaven require an act of 
 faith, of courage. A noble and a sublime starting-point ! But he 
 has trusted, he has made the leap, he will not fall. Trembling, he 
 floats in air, supported by the paternal breath of heaven, by the re- 
 assuring voice of his mother. All is finished. Thenceforth he will 
 fly regardless of the wind and the storm, strong in that first great 
 trial wherein he flew in faith. 
 
 [NOTE. The Swallow's Flight. According to Wilson, the swallow's ordinary flight 
 averages one mile per minute. He is engaged in flying for ten hours daily. Now, as his 
 life is usually extended to a space of ten years, he flies, in that period, 2,190,000 miles, or 
 nearly eighty-eight times the circumference of the glohe. 
 
 18
 
 274 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 The swallow, as Sir Humphrey Davy observes, cheers the sense of sight as much as the 
 nightingale does the sense of hearing. He is the glad prophet of the year, the 
 harbinger of its brightest season, and lives a life of free enjoyment amongst the loveliest 
 forms of nature. 
 
 There is something peculiarly beautiful iu his rapid, steady, -well-balanced flight, 
 
 " Which, ere a double pulse can beat, 
 Is here and there with motion fleet, 
 As Ariel's wing could scarce exceed ; 
 And, full of vigour as of speed, 
 Forestalls the dayspring's earliest gleam, 
 Nor fails with evening's latest beam." 
 
 To all nations he is welcome, and by all the poets has been celebrated with fond eulogimn 
 Translator.']
 
 THE HiGHTlNCALE.
 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 ART AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 THE celebrated Pre'-aux-Clercs, now known as the 
 Marche Saint Germain, is, as everybody knows, on Sundays, 
 the Bird Market of Paris. The place has more than one 
 claim on our curiosity. It is a vast menagerie, frequently 
 renewed a shifting, strange museum of French ornithology. 
 On the other hand, such an auction of living beings, 
 of captives many of whom feel their captivity, of slaves 
 whom the auctioneer exposes, sells, and values more or less 
 adroitly, indirectly reminds one, after all, of the markets of 
 the East, the auctions of human slaves. The winged 
 slaves, without understanding our languages, do not the 
 less vividly express the thought of servitude ; some, born in 
 ^ this condition, are resigned to it; others, sombre and silent, 
 dream ever of freedom. Not a few appear to address themselves to 
 you, seem desirous of arresting the passer-by's attention, and ask only 
 for a good master. How often have we seen an intelligent goldfinch, 
 an amiable robin, regarding us with a mournful gaze, but a gaze by 
 no means doubtful in its meaning, for it said : "Buy me !"
 
 278 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 One Sunday in summer we paid a visit to this mart, which we 
 shall never forget. It was not well stocked, still less harmonious ; 
 the season of moulting and of silence had begun. We were not the 
 less keenly attracted by and interested in the naive attitude of a few 
 individuals. Ordinarily their song and their plumage, the bird's two 
 principal attributes, preoccupy us, and prevent us from observing 
 their lively and original pantomime. One bird, the American mock- 
 ing-bird, has a comedian's genius, distinguishing all his songs by a 
 mimicry strictly appropriate to their character, and often very ironical. 
 Our birds do not possess this singular art ; but, without skill, and 
 unknown to themselves, they express, by significant and frequently 
 pathetic movements, the thoughts which traverse their brain. 
 
 On this particular day, the queen of the market was a black- 
 capped warbler, an artist-bird of great value, set apart in the display 
 from the other birds, like a peerless jewel. She fluttered, svelte 
 and charming ; all in her was grace. Accustomed to captivity by a 
 long training, she seemed to regret nothing, and could only communi- 
 cate to the soul happy and gentle impressions. She was plainly a 
 being of perfect geniality, and of such harmony of song and move- 
 ment, that in seeing her move I thought I heard her sing. 
 
 Lower, very much lower, in a narrow cage, a bird somewhat 
 larger in size, very inhumanly confined, gave me a curious and quite 
 opposite impression. This was a chaffinch, and the first which I had 
 seen blind. No spectacle could be more painful. The man who 
 would purchase by such a deed of cruelty this victim's song, must have a 
 nature alien to all harmony, a barbarous soul. His attitude of labour 
 and torture rendered his song very painful to me. The worst of it is 
 that it was human; it reminded one of the turns of the head and the 
 ungracious motions of the shoulders which short-sighted persons, or 
 men become blind, indulge in. Such is never the case with those 
 born blind. With a violent but continual effort, grown habitual, the 
 head inclined to the right, with empty eyes he sought the light. The 
 neck was outstretched, to sink again between the shoulders, and 
 swelled out to gain new strength the neck short, the shoulders
 
 ART AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 279 
 
 bent. This unhappy virtuoso, whose song, like himself, was dis- 
 sembled and deformed, had been a mean image of the ugliness of the 
 slave-artist, if not ennobled by that indomitable effort to pursue the 
 light, seeking it always on high, and ever centering his song in the 
 invisible sun which he had treasured up in his soul. 
 
 Moderately capable of profiting by instruction, this bird repeats, 
 with a marvellous metallic timbre, the song of his native wood, and 
 preserves the particular accent of the country in which he was born; 
 there being as many dialects of chaffinches as there are different 
 districts. He remains faithful to his own ; he sings only his cradle- 
 song, and that with an uniform rate, but with a wild passion and an 
 extraordinary emulation. Set opposite, a rival, he will repeat it eight 
 hundred successive times ; occasionally he dies of it. I am not 
 astonished that the Belgians enthusiastically celebrate the combats of 
 this hero of the national song, the chorister of their forest of Ardennes, 
 decreeing prizes, crowns, even triumphal arches, to those acts of 
 supreme devotion in which life is yielded for victory. 
 
 Still lower down than the chaffinch, and in a very small and wretched 
 cage, peopled pell-mell with half-a-dozen birds of very different sizes, 
 I was shown a prisoner which I had not distinguished, a young night-
 
 280 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 ingale caught that very morning. The fowler, by a skilful Machia- 
 velism, had placed the little captive in a world of very joyous slaves, 
 quite accustomed to their confinement. These were young troglodytes, 
 recently born in a cage ; he had rightly calculated that the sight of 
 the sports of innocent infancy sometimes beguiles great grief. 
 
 Great evidently, nay, overpowering, was his, and more impressive 
 than any of those sorrows which we express by tears. A dumb 
 agony, pent up within himself, and longing for the darkness. He 
 had withdrawn into the shade as far as might be, to the bottom of 
 the cage, half hidden in a small eating-trough, making himself large 
 and swollen with his slightly-bristling feathers, closing his eyes, never 
 opening them even when he was disturbed, shaken by the frolicsome and 
 careless pastimes of the young turbulents, which frequently drove one 
 another against him. Plainly he would neither see, nor hear, nor eat, 
 nor console himself. These self-imposed shadows were, as I clearly 
 saw, an effort, in his cruel suffering, not to be, an intentional suicide. 
 With his mind he embraced death, and died, so far a,s he was able, 
 by the suspension of his senses and of all external activity. 
 
 Observe that, in this attitude, there was no indication of malicious, 
 bitter, or choleric feeling, nothing to remind one of his neighbour, the 
 morose chaffinch, with his attitude of violent and torturing exertion. 
 Even the indiscretion of the young birdlings which, without care or 
 respect, occasionally threw themselves upon him, could call forth no 
 mark of impatience. He said, obviously : " What matters it to one 
 who is no more?" Although his eyes were closed, I did not the 
 less easily read him. I perceived an artist's soul, all tenderness and 
 all light, without rancour and without harshness against the barbarity 
 of the world and the ferocity of fate. And it was through this that 
 he lived, through this that he could not die, because he found within 
 himself, in his great sorrow, the all-powerful cordial inherent in his 
 nature : internal light, song. In the language of nightingales, these 
 two words convey the same meaning. 
 
 I comprehended that he did not die, because even then, despite 
 himself, despite his keen desire of death, he could not do otherwise
 
 ART AND THE INFINITE. 261 
 
 than sing. His heart chanted a voiceless strain, which I heard per- 
 fectly well : 
 
 " Lascia che io pianga .' 
 La Liberia." 
 
 Liberty ! Suffer me to weep ! 
 
 I had not expected to find here once more that song which, in the 
 old time, and by another mouth (a mouth which shall never again be 
 opened), had already pierced my heart, and left a wound which no 
 time shall efface. 
 
 I demanded of his custodian if he were for sale. The shrewd 
 fellow replied that he was too young to be sold, that as yet he did 
 not eat alone ; a statement evidently untrue, for he was not that year's 
 bird ; but the man wished to keep him for disposal in the winter, 
 when, his voice returning, he would fetch a higher price. 
 
 Such a nightingale, born in freedom, which alone is the true 
 nightingale, bears a very different value to one born in a cage : he 
 sings quite differently, having known liberty and nature, and regret- 
 ting both. The better part of the great artist's genius is suffering. 
 
 Artist ! I have said the word, and I will not unsay it. This is 
 not an analogy, a comparison of things having a resemblance : no, it 
 is the thing itself. 
 
 The nightingale, in my opinion, is not the chief, but the only 
 one, of the winged people to which this name can be justly given. 
 
 And why ? He alone is a creator ; he alone varies, enriches, 
 amplifies his song, and augments it by new strains. He alone is 
 fertile and diverse in himself; other birds are so by instruction and 
 imitation. He alone resumes, contains almost all ; each of them, of 
 the most brilliant, suggests a couplet to the nightingale. 
 
 Only one other bird, like him, attains sublime results in the 
 bold and simple I mean the lark, the daughter of the sun. And 
 the nightingale also is inspired by the light ; so that, when in cap- 
 tivity, alone, and deprived of love, it suffices to unloose his song. 
 Confined for a while in darkness, then suddenly restored to the day, 
 he runs riot with enthusiasm, he bursts into hymns of joy. This
 
 282 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 difference, nevertheless, exists between the two birds : the lark never 
 sings in the night ; hers is not the nocturnal melody, the hidden 
 meaning of the grand effects of evening, the deep poesy of the 
 shadows, the solemnity of midnight, the aspirations before dawn 
 in a word, that infinitely varied poem which translates and 
 reveals to us, in all its changes, a great heart brimful of tenderness. 
 The lark's is the lyrical genius ; the nightingale's, the epic, the 
 drama, the inner struggle, from thence, a light apart. In deep 
 darkness, it looks into its soul, into love ; soaring at times, it 
 would seem, beyond the individual love into the ocean of love, 
 infinite. 
 
 And will you not call him an artist ? He has the artist's tem- 
 perament, and exalted to a degree which man himself rarely attains. 
 All which belongs to it all its merits, all its defects in him are 
 superabundant. He is mild and timid, mistrustful, but not at all 
 cunning. He takes no heed to his safety, and travels alone. He is 
 burningly jealous, equalling the chaffinch in fiery emulation. " He 
 will break his heart to sing," says one of his historians.* He listens ; 
 he takes up his abode, especially where an echo exists, to listen and 
 
 reply. Nervous to an excess, one sees him in captivity sometimes 
 sleeping long through the day with perturbing dreams ; sometimes 
 
 * Everybody knows the beautiful story of the ' Musician's Duel" the rivalry between 
 a nightingale and a flute-player as told by Ford and Crashaw. Translator.
 
 ART AND THE INFINITE. 283 
 
 struggling, starting up, and wildly battling. He is subject to ner- 
 vous attacks and epilepsy. 
 
 He is kindly he is ferocious. Let me explain myself. His 
 heart is full of tenderness for the weak and little. Give him orphans 
 to watch over, he will take charge of them, and clasp them to his 
 heart ; a male, and aged, he nourishes and tends them as carefully as 
 any mother-bird. On the other hand, he is exceedingly cruel towards 
 his prey, is greedy and voracious ; the flame which burns inly, and 
 keeps him almost always thin, makes him constantly feel the need of 
 recruitment, and it is also one of the reasons that he is so easily 
 ensnared. It is enough to set your bait in the morning; especially 
 in April and May, when he exhausts himself by singing throughout 
 the night. In the morning, weakened, frail, avid, he pounces blindly 
 on the snare. Moreover, he is very curious, and, in order to examine 
 a novel object, will expose himself to be caught. 
 
 Once captured, if you do not take the precaution to tie his wings, 
 or rather to cover the interior and pad the upper part of the cage, he 
 will kill himself by the frantic fury of his movements. 
 
 This violence is on the surface. At bottom, he is gentle and 
 docile : it is these qualities which raise him so high, and make him 
 in truth an artist. He is not only the most inspired, but the most 
 tractable, the most " civilizable," the most laborious of birds. 
 
 It is a charming sight to see the fledglings gathered round their 
 father, listening to him attentively, and profiting by his lessons to 
 form the voice, to correct their faults, to soften their novice-like 
 roughness, to render their young organs supple. 
 
 But how much more curious it is to see him training himself, 
 judging, perfecting himself, paying especial attention when he ven- 
 tures on new themes ! This steadfast perseverance, which springs 
 from his reverence for his art and from a kind of inward religion, is 
 the morality of the artist, his divine consecration, which seals him as 
 one apart distinguishes him from the vain improvisatore, whose 
 unconscientious babble is a simple echo of nature. 
 
 Thus love and light are undoubtedly his point of departure ; but
 
 284 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 art itself, the love of the beautiful, confusedly seen in glimpses, and 
 very keenly felt, are a second aliment, which sustains his soul, and 
 supplies it with a new inspiration. And this is boundless a day 
 opened on the infinite. 
 
 The true greatness of the artist consists in overshooting his mark, 
 in doing more than he willed ; and, moreover, in passing far beyond 
 the goal, in crossing the limits of the possible, and looking' beyond 
 beyond. 
 
 Hence arise great sorrows, an inexhaustible source of melancholy ; 
 hence the sublime folly of weeping over misfortunes which he has 
 never experienced. Other birds are astonished, and occasionally 
 inquire of him what is the cause of his grief, what does he regret. 
 When free and joyous in his forest-home, he does not the less vouch- 
 safe for his reply the strain which my captive chanted in his 
 silence : 
 
 " Lascia che io pianga ! " 
 Suffer me, suffer me to weep !
 
 THE NiCMTJMCALE
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE: 
 
 COXTIXUED. 
 
 / 
 
 , THE hours of silence are not barren for the nightin- 
 
 gale. He gathers his ideas and reflects ; he broods over 
 the songs which he has heard or has himself attempted ; 
 he modifies and improves them with perfect tact and taste. 
 For the false notes of an ignorant master he substitutes 
 ingenious and harmonious variations. The imperfect strain 
 which he has learned, but has not repeated, he then repro- 
 duces ; but made indeed his own, appropriated by his own 
 genius, and converted into a nightingale's melody. 
 
 " Do not be discouraged," says a quaint old writer, 
 " if the young bird be not willing to repeat your lesson, 
 and continue to warble ; soon he will show you that he 
 has not forgotten the lessons received in autumn and 
 winter -a Jit season for meditation, oiving to the length of the 
 nights ; he will repeat them in the spring-time." 
 
 It is very interesting to follow, during the winter, the nightin-
 
 288 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 gale's thoughts, in his darkened cage, wrapped round with a green 
 cloth, which partially deceives his gaze, and reminds him of his forest. 
 In December he begins to dream aloud, to descant, to describe in 
 pathetic notes the things passing before his mind the loved and 
 absent objects. Mayhap he then forgets that migration has been for- 
 bidden him, and thinks he has arrived in Africa or in Syria, in lands 
 lighted by a more generous sun. It may be that he sees this sun ; 
 sees the rose reblossom, and recommences for her, as say the Persian 
 poets, his hymn of impossible love, " sun ! sea ! rose /"- 
 (Ruckert.} 
 
 For nryself, I believe simply that this noble and pathetic hymn, 
 with its lofty accent, is nought else but himself, his life of love and 
 combat, his nightingale's drama. He beholds the woods, the beloved 
 object which transfigures them. He sees her tender vivacity, and 
 the thousand graces of the winged life which we are unable to per- 
 ceive. He speaks to her ; she answers him. He takes upon himself 
 two characters, and, to the full, sonorous voice of the male, replies in 
 soft, brief utterances. What then ? I doubt not that already the 
 rapturousness of his life breaks upon him the tender intimacy of the 
 nest, the little lowly dwelling which would have been his Eden. 
 He believes in it ; he shuts his eyes, and completes the illusion. 
 The egg is hatched ; his Yule-tide miracle disclosed ; his son issues 
 forth the future nightingale, even at its birth sublimely melodious. 
 He listens ecstatically, in the night of his gloomy cage, to the future 
 song of his offspring. 
 
 And all this, to be sure, passes before him in a poetical confusion, 
 where obstacles and strife break up and disturb love's festival. No 
 happiness here below is pure. A third intervenes. The captive in 
 his solitude grows irritated and eager ; he struggles visibly against 
 his unseen adversary that other, the unworthy rival which is present 
 to his mind. 
 
 The scene is developed before him, just as it would have transpired 
 in spring, when the male birds returning, towards March or April, and 
 before the re-appearance of the hens, resolve to decide among them-
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 289 
 
 selves their great duel of jealousy. For when the latter arrive, 
 all must be calm and peaceful ; there should prevail nothing but 
 love, tranquillity, and tenderness. The battle endures some fifteen 
 days ; and if the female birds return Sooner, the effort grows deadly. 
 The story of Roland is literally realized ; he sounded his ivory horn, 
 even to the extinction of strength and life. These, too, sing until 
 their last breath until death : they will triumph or die. 
 
 If it be true, as we are assured, that the lovers are two or three 
 times more numerous than the lady-loves, you may conceive the 
 violence of this burning emulousness, in which, perhaps, lurks the 
 first spark and the secret of their genius. 
 
 The fate of the vanquished is terrible worse than death. He is 
 constrained to fly ; to quit the province, the country ; to sink into 
 the comrade of the lower races of birds ; while his song is degraded 
 into a patois. He forgets and disgraces himself ; becomes vulgarized 
 among this vulgar people ; little by little growing ignorant of his own 
 tongue, of theirs, of any tongue. We sometimes discover among 
 these exiles birds which preserve only the external likeness of the 
 nightingale. 
 
 Though the rival is expelled, nothing as yet is done. The victor 
 must please, must subdue her. Oh ! bright moment, soft inspiration 
 of the new song which shall touch that little proud Wild-heart, and 
 compel it to abandon liberty for love ! The test imposed by the hen- 
 bird in other species is assistance in building or excavating the nest ; 
 that the male may show he is skilful, and will take his offspring to his 
 heart. The effect is sometimes admirable. The woodpecker, as we have 
 seen, is elevated from a workman into an artist, and from a carpenter 
 into a sculptor. But, alas ! the nightingale does not possess this 
 talent ; he knows not how to do anything. The least among the 
 small birds is a hundred times more adroit with his bill, his wing, 
 his claw. He has only his voice which he can make use of; there 
 his power breaks forth, there he will be irresistible. Others may dis- 
 play their works, but his work is himself; he shows, he reveals him- 
 self, and he appears sublime and grand. 
 
 19
 
 290 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 I have never heard him at this solemn moment without thinking 
 that not only should he touch her heart, but transform, ennoble, 
 and exalt her, inspire her with a lofty ideal, with the enchanted 
 dream of a glorious nightingale which shall be hereafter the offspring 
 of their love. 
 
 Let us resume. So far, we have particularized three songs. 
 
 The drama of the battle-song, with its alternations of envy, pride, 
 bravado, stern and jealous fury. 
 
 The song of solicitation, of soft and tender entreaty, but mingled 
 with haughty movements of an almost imperious impatience, wherein 
 genius is visibly astonished that it still remains unrecognized, is irri- 
 tated at the delay, and laments it ; returning quickly, however, to 
 its tone of reverent pleading. 
 
 Finally comes the song of triumph : "I am the conqueror, I am 
 loved, the king, the divinity, and the creator." In this last word 
 lies all the intensity of life and love; for it is she, above all, 
 that creates, mirroring and reflecting his genius, and so transforming 
 herself that henceforth there is not in her a movement, a breath, a 
 nutter of the wings, which does not owe its melodiousness to him, 
 rendered visible in this enchanted grace. 
 
 Thence spring the nest, the egg, the infant. All these are an em- 
 bodied and living song. And this is the reason that he does not stir 
 from her for a moment, during the sacred labour of incubation. He 
 does not remain in the nest, but on a neighbouring branch, slightly 
 elevated above it. He knows marvellously well that his voice is 
 most potent at a distance. From this exalted position, the all- 
 powerful magician continues to fascinate and fertilize the nest; he 
 co-operates in the great mystery, and still inspires with song, and 
 heart, and breath, and will, and tenderness. 
 
 This is the time that you should hear him, should hear him in 
 his native woods, should participate in the emotions of this powerful 
 fecundity, the most proper perhaps to reveal, to enable us to com- 
 prehend here below the great hidden Deity which eludes us. He 
 recedes before us at every step, and science does no more than put
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 291 
 
 a little further back the veil wherein he conceals himself. " Behold," 
 said Moses, " behold him who passes, 
 I have seen him by the skirts." " Is 
 it not he," said Linnd, "who passes? 
 I have seen him in outline." And 
 for myself, I close my eyes; I per- 
 ceive him with an agitated heart, I 
 feel him stirring within me on a 
 night enchanted by the voice of the 
 nightingale. 
 
 Let us draw near; it is a lover : 
 yet keep you distant, for it is 
 a god. The melody, now vibrating 
 with a glowing appeal to the senses, 
 anon grows sublime and amplified 
 by the effects of the wind; it is a 
 strain of sacred harmony . which 
 swells through all the forest. Near 
 at hand, it is occupied with the 
 nest, their love, the son which will 
 be born; but afar, another is the be- 
 loved, another is the son: it is 
 Nature, mother and daughter, eternal 
 love, which hymns and glorifies it- 
 self; it is the infinite of love which 
 loves in all things and sings in all ; 
 these are the tendernesses, the can- 
 ticles, the songs of gratitude, which 
 go up from earth to heaven. 
 * * * * 
 
 " Child, I have felt this in our 
 southern fields, during the beauti- 
 ful starry nights, near my father's 
 house. At a later time, I felt it more keenly, especially in the
 
 292 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 vicinity of Nantes, in the lonesome vineyard of which I have spoken 
 in a preceding page. The nights, less sparkling, were lightly veiled 
 with a warm haze, through which the stars discreetly sent their tender 
 glances. A nightingale nestled on the ground, in a spot but half con- 
 cealed, under my cedar tree, and among the periwinkle-flowers. He 
 began towards midnight, and continued until dawn; happily, mani- 
 festly proud, in his solitary vigil, and filling the majestic silence with 
 his voice. No one interrupted him except, near morning, the cock, 
 a creature of a different world, a stranger to the songs of the spirit, 
 but a punctual sentinel, who felt himself conscientiously compelled 
 to indicate the hour and warn the workman. 
 
 " The other persisted for some time in his strain, seeming to say, 
 like Juliet to Romeo: 'No, it is not the day.' 
 
 " His stationing himself near us showed that he feared nothing, 
 that he knew how profound a security he might enjoy by the side of 
 two hermits of work, very busy, very benevolent, and not less 
 occupied than the winged solitary in their song and their dream. 
 We could watch him at our ease, either fluttering about en famille, 
 or maintaining a rivalry in song with a haughty neighbour who 
 sometimes came to brave him. In course of time we became, I 
 think, rather agreeable to him, as assiduous auditors, amateurs, per- 
 haps connoisseurs. The nightingale feels the want of appreciation 
 and applause; he plainly has a great regard for man's attentive ear, 
 and fully comprehends his admiration. 
 
 " Once more I can see him, at some ten or fifteen paces distant, 
 hopping forward in accordance with my movements, preserving the 
 same interval between us, so as to keep always out of reach, but at 
 the same time to be heard and admired. 
 
 "The attire in which you are clothed is by no means a matter 
 of indifference to him. I have observed that birds in general do not 
 like black, and that they are afraid of it. I was dressed quite to his 
 fancy, in white shaded with lilac, with a straw hat ornamented with 
 a few blossoms. Every minute I could see him fix upon me his black 
 eye, of a singular vivacity, wild and gentle, sometimes a. little proud,
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 293 
 
 which said plainly, ' I am free, and I have wings ; against me thou 
 canst do nothing. But I am veiy willing to sing for thee.' 
 
 " We had a succession of severe storms at breeding-time, and on 
 one occasion the thunder rolled near us. No scene can be more 
 affecting than the approach of these moments: the air fails; fish rise 
 to the surface in order to breathe a little; the flower bends languidly ; 
 everything suffers, and tears flow unbidden. I could see clearly that 
 his feelings were in unison with the general distress. From his 
 bosom, oppressed like mine, broke a kind of hoarse sob, like a 
 wild cry. 
 
 - 
 
 " But the wind, which had suddenly risen, now plunged into our 
 woods; the loftiest .trees, even the cedar, bent. Torrents of rain 
 dashed headlong, all was afloat. What became of the poor little nest, 
 exposed on the ground, with no other shelter than the periwinkle's 
 leaf? It escaped; for when the sun reappeared, I saw my bird 
 flying in the purified air, gayer than ever, with his heart full of 
 song. All the world of wings then hymned the light ; but he more 
 loudly than any. His clarion voice had returned. I saw him be- 
 neath my window, his eye on fire and his breast swollen, intoxi-
 
 294 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 eating himself with the same happiness that made my heart 
 palpitate. 
 
 " Tender alliance of souls ! Why does it not everywhere exist, 
 between us and our winged brothers, between man and the universal 
 living nature ?"
 
 CONCLUSION.
 
 CONCLUS 
 
 AT the very moment that I am about to pen the conclusion of 
 this book, our illustrious master arrives from his great autumnal 
 sport. Toussenel brings me a nightingale. 
 
 I had requested him to assist me with his advice, to guide me in 
 choosing a singing nightingale. He does not write, but he comes ; 
 lie does not advise, he looks about, finds, gives, realizes my dream. 
 This, of a truth, is friendship. 
 
 Be welcome, bird, both for the sake of the cherished hand which 
 brings thee, and for thy own, for thy hallowed muse, the genius 
 which dwells within thee ! 
 
 Wilt thou sing readily for me, and, by thy puissance of love and 
 calm, shed harmony on a heart troubled by- the cruel history of men ? 
 
 It was an event in our family, and we established the poor artist- 
 prisoner in a window-niche, but enveloped with a curtain; in such 
 wise that, being both in solitude and yet in society, he might 
 gradually accustom himself to his new hosts, reconnoitre the locality, 
 and assure himself that he was under a safe, a peaceful, and benevo- 
 lent roof. 
 
 No other bird lived in this saloon. Unfortunately, my familiar 
 robin, which flies freely about my study, penetrated into the apart-
 
 298 CONCLUSION. 
 
 ment. We had troubled ourselves the less about him, because he saw 
 daily, without any emotion, canaries, bullfinches, nightingales ; but 
 the sight of the nightingale threw him into an incredible transport of 
 fury. Passionate and intrepid, without heeding that the object of 
 his hate was twice his own size, he pounced on the cage with bill 
 and claws; he would fain have killed its inmate. The nightingale, 
 however, uttered cries of alarm, and called for help with a hoarse and 
 pitiful voice. The other, checked by the bars, but clinging with his 
 claws to the frame of an adjacent picture, raged, hissed, crackled (the 
 popular word petillait alone expresses his short, sharp cry), piercing 
 him with his glances. He said, in effect: 
 
 " King of song, what dost thou here? Is it not enough that in 
 the woods thy imperious and absorbing voice should silence all our 
 lays, hush our strains into whispers, and singly fill the desert ? 
 Yet thou comest hither to deprive me of the new existence which I 
 have found for myself, of this artificial grove where I perch all the 
 winter, a grove whose branches are the shelves of a library, whose 
 leaves are books ! Thou comest to share, to usurp the attention of 
 which I was the object, the reverie of my master, and my mistress's 
 smile ! Woe to thee ! I was loved ! " 
 
 The robin does, in reality, attain to a very high degree of famili- 
 arity with man. The experience of a long winter proves to me that 
 he much prefers human society to that of his own kind. In our 
 absence he shares in the small talk of the birds of the aviary; but as
 
 CONCLUSION. 299 
 
 soon as we arrive, he abandons them, and comes curiously to place 
 himself before us, remains with us, seems to say, " You are here, 
 then ! But where have you been ? And why have you absented 
 yourself so long from home ? " 
 
 The invasion of the robin, which we soon forgot, was not for- 
 gotten, it appears, by his timorous victim. The unfortunate nightingale 
 fluttered about ever afterwards with an air of alarm, and nothing 
 could reassure him. 
 
 Care was taken, however, that no one should approach him. His 
 mistress had charged herself with the necessary attentions. The 
 peculiar mixture which alone can nourish this ardent centre of life 
 (blood, hemp, and poppy), was conscientiously prepared. Blood and 
 flesh, these are the substance; hemp is the herb of intoxication; but 
 the poppy neutralizes it. The nightingale is the only creature which 
 it is necessary to feed incessantly with sleep and dreams. 
 
 But all was in vain. Two or three days passed in a violent 
 agitation, and in abstinence through despair. I was melancholy, and 
 filled with remorse. I, a friend of freedom, had nevertheless a 
 prisoner, and a prisoner who would not be consoled ! It was not 
 without some scruples that I had formed the idea of procuring a 
 nightingale; for the mere sake of pleasure, I should never have come 
 to such a decision. I knew well that the very spectacle of such a 
 captive, deeply sensible of its captivity, was a permanent source of 
 sorrow. But how should I set him free? Of all questions, that of 
 slavery is the most difficult; the tyrant is punished by the impos- 
 sibility of finding a remedy for it. My captive, before coming into 
 my possession, had been two years in a cage, and had neither wings 
 nor the impulse of industry to seek his own food; but had it been 
 otherwise, he could return no more to the free birds. In their proud 
 commonwealth, whoever has been a slave, whoever has languished 
 in a cage and not died of grief, is pitilessly condemned and put to 
 death. 
 
 We should not easily have escaped from this dilemma, if song 
 had not come to our assistance. A soft, almost monotonous strain,
 
 300 CONCLUSION. 
 
 sung at a distance, especially just before evening, appeared to in- 
 fluence and win upon him. If we did but look at him, he listened less 
 attentively, and grew disturbed; but if we turned aside our gaze, he 
 came to the brink of the cage, stretched out his long, fawn-like neck 
 (of a charming mouse-like gray), raised every now and then his head, 
 his body remaining motionless, with a keen inquiring eye. With 
 evident avidity, he tasted and enjoyed this unexpected pleasure, with 
 grateful recollection, and delicate and sensitive attention. 
 
 This same avidity he felt a minute afterwards for his food. He 
 was fain to live, he devoured the poppy, forge tfulness. 
 
 A woman's songs, Toussenel had told me, are those which affect 
 them most; not the vivacious aria of a wayward damsel, but a soft, 
 sad melody. Schubert's " Serenade " had a peculiar influence upon 
 our nightingale. He seemed to feel and recognize himself in that 
 German soul, as tender as it was profound. 
 
 His voice, however, he did not regain. When transported to my 
 house, he had begun his December songs. The emotions of the 
 journey, the change of locale and of persons, the inquietude which he 
 had experienced in his new condition, and, above all, the ferocious 
 welcome, the robin's assault, had too deeply moved him. He 
 grew tranquil, asked no more of us; but the muse, so rudely 
 inteiTupted, was thenceforth silent, and did not awake until 
 spring. 
 
 Meanwhile, he certainly knew that the person who sang afar off 
 wished him no evil ; he apparently supposed her to be a nightingale 
 of another form. She might without difficulty approach, and even 
 put her hand in his cage. He regarded intently what she did, but 
 did not stir. 
 
 It became a curious question to me, who had not contracted with 
 him this musical alliance, to know if he would also accept me. I 
 showed no indiscreet eagerness, knowing that even a look, at certain 
 moments, vexes him. For many days, therefore, I kept my attention 
 fixed on the old books or papers of the fourteenth century, without 
 observing him. But he, he would examine me very curiously when
 
 CONCLUSION. 301 
 
 I was alone. Be it understood, however, that when his mistress was 
 present, he -entirely forgot me, I was annulled ! 
 
 Thus he grew accustomed to see me daily without any uneasiness, 
 as an inoffensive, pacific being, with little of movement or noise about 
 me. The fire in the grate, and near the fire this peaceable reader, 
 were, during the absences of the preferred individual, in the still and 
 almost solitary hours, his objects of contemplation. 
 
 I ventured yesterday, being alone, to approach him, to speak to 
 him as I do to the robin, and he did not grow agitated, he did not 
 appear disturbed ; he listened quietly, with an eye full of softness. I 
 saw that peace was concluded, and that I was accepted. 
 
 This morning I have with my own hand placed the poppy seed 
 in the cage, and he is not the least alarmed. You will say : " Who 
 gives is welcome." But I assert that our treaty was signed yesterday, 
 before I had given him anything, and was perfectly disinterested. 
 
 See, then, in less than a month, the most nervous of artists, 
 the most timid and mistrustful of beings, grows reconciled with the 
 human species. 
 
 A curious proof of the natural union, of the pre-existent alliance 
 which prevails between us and these creatures of instinct, which we 
 call inferior. 
 
 This alliance, this eternal fact, which our brutality and our 
 ferocious intelligences have not yet been able to rend asunder, to 
 which these poor little ones so readily return, to which we shall
 
 302 CONCLUSION. 
 
 ourselves return, when we shall be truly men, is exactly the con- 
 clusion this book has aimed at, and which I was about to write, 
 when the nightingale entered, and the father with the nightin- 
 gale. 
 
 The bird himself has been, in that facile amnesty which he has 
 granted to us, his tyrants, my living conclusion. 
 
 Those travellers who have been the first to penetrate into lands 
 hitherto untrodden by man, -unanimously report that all animals, 
 mammals, amphibians, birds, do not shun them, but, on the contrary, 
 rather approach to regard them with an air of benevolent curiosity, 
 to which they have responded with musket-shots. 
 
 Even to-day, after man has treated them so cruelly, animals, 
 in their times of peril, never hesitate to draw near him. 
 
 The bird's ancient and natural foe is the serpent ; the enemy of 
 quadrupeds is the tiger. And their protector is -man. 
 
 From the furthest distance that the wild dog smells the scent of 
 the tiger or the lion, he comes to press close to us. 
 
 And so, too, the bird, in the horror which the serpent inspires, 
 especially when it threatens his callow brood, finds a language of the 
 most forcible character to implore man's help, and to thank him if he 
 kills his enemy. 
 
 For this reason the humming-bird loves to nestle near man. 
 And it is probably from the same motive that the swallows and the
 
 CONCLUSION. 303 
 
 storks, in times fertile in reptiles, have acquired the habit of dwelling 
 among us. 
 
 Here an observation becomes essential. We often construe as a 
 sign of mistrust the bird's flight and his fear of the human hand. 
 This fear is only too well founded. But even if it did not exist, the 
 bird is an infinitely nervous and delicate creature, which suffers if 
 simply touched. 
 
 My robin, which belongs to a very robust and friendly race of 
 birds, which continually draws near us, as near as possible, and 
 which assuredly has no fear of his mistress, trembles to fall into her 
 hand. The rustling of his plumes, the derangement of his down, all 
 bristling when he has been handled, he keenly dislikes. The sight, 
 above all, of the outstretched hand about to seize him, makes him 
 recoil instinctively. 
 
 When he lingers about in the evening, and does not return into 
 his cage, he does not refuse to be replaced within it ; but sooner than 
 see himself caught, he turns his back, hides in a crease or fold of the 
 gown where he well knows he must infallibly be taken. 
 
 All this is not mistrust. 
 
 The art of domestication will make no progress if it occupies 
 itself only with the services which tamed animals may render 
 to man. 
 
 It ought to proceed in the main from the consideration of the 
 service which man may render the animals ; 
 
 Of his duty to initiate all the tenants of this world into a gentler, 
 more peaceable, and superior society. 
 
 In the barbarism in which we are still plunged, we know of only 
 two conditions for the animal, absolute liberty or absolute slavery ;
 
 304 CONCLUSION. 
 
 but there are many forms of demi-servitude which the animals them- 
 selves would willingly accept. 
 
 The small Chili falcon (cernicula), for example, loves to dwell 
 with his master. He goes alone on his hunting expeditions, and 
 faithfully returns every evening with what he has captured, to eat it 
 en famille. He feels the want of being praised by the father, nattered 
 by the dame, and, above all, caressed by the children. 
 
 Man, formerly protected by the animals, while he was indifferently 
 armed, has gradually risen into a position to become their protector, 
 especially since he has had powder, and enjoyed the possibility of 
 shooting down from a distance the most formidable creatures. He has 
 rendered birds the essential service of infinitely diminishing the number 
 of the robbers of the air. 
 
 He may render them another, and not a less important one that 
 of sheltering at night the innocent species. Night ! sleep ! complete 
 abandonment to the most frightful chances ! Oh ! harshness of 
 Nature ! But she is justified, inasmuch as she has planted here 
 below the far-seeing and industrious being who shall more and more 
 become for all others a second providence. 
 
 " I know a house on the Indre," says Toussenel, " where the 
 greenhouses, open at even, receive every honest bird which seeks an 
 asylum against the dangers of the night, where he who has delayed 
 till late knocks with his bill in confidence. Content to be immured
 
 CONCLUSION. 305 
 
 during the night, secure in the loyalty of their host, they fly away 
 happy in the morning, and repay him for his hospitality with the 
 spectacle of their joy and their unrestricted strains." 
 
 I shall exercise great caution in speaking of their domestication, 
 since my friend, M. Isidore Geoffrey Saint Hilaire, reopens in so 
 praiseworthy a manner this long-forgotten question. 
 
 An allusion will suffice. Antiquity in this special branch has 
 bequeathed us the admirable patrimony which has supported the 
 human race : the domestication of the dog, the horse, and the ass ; of 
 the camel, the elephant, the ox, the sheep, the goat, and poultry. 
 
 What progress has been made in the last two thousand years ? 
 What new acquisition ? 
 
 Two only, and these unquestionably trivial : the importation of 
 the turkey and the China pheasant. 
 
 No direct effort of man has accomplished so much for the welfare of 
 the globe as the humble toil of the modest auxiliaries of human life. 
 
 To descend to that which we so foolishly despise, to the poultry- 
 yard, when one sees the millions of eggs which the ovens of Egypt 
 hatch, or with which our Normandy loads the ships and fleets that 
 every year traverse the Channel, one learns to appreciate how the 
 small agencies of domestic economy produce the greatest results. 
 
 20
 
 306 CONCLUSION. 
 
 If France did not possess the horse, and some person introduced 
 it, such a conquest would be of greater benefit to her than the 
 conquest of the Rhine, of Belgium, of Savoy ; the horse alone would 
 be worth three kingdoms. 
 
 But here now is an animal which represents in itself the horse, 
 the ass, the cow, the goat ; which combines all their useful qualities, 
 and which yields moreover an incomparable wool ; a hardy, robust 
 animal, enduring cold with wonderful vigour. You understand, of 
 course, that I refer to the lama, which M. Isidore Geoffrey Saint 
 Hilaire exerts himself) with so laudable a perseverance, to naturalize 
 in France. Everything seems leagued in his despite : the fine flock 
 at Versailles has perished through malice ; that of the Jardin des 
 Plantes will perish through the confined area and dampness of the 
 locality. 
 
 The conquest of the lama is ten times more important than the 
 conquest of the Crimea. 
 
 But again, this species of transplantation needs a generosity of 
 means, a combination of precautions, let us say a tenderness of edu- 
 cation, which are rarely found united. 
 
 One word here one small fact whose bearing is not small. 
 
 A great writer, who was not a man of science, Bernardin de 
 Saint Pierre, had remarked that we should never succeed in trans- 
 planting the animal unless we imported along with him the plant to 
 which he was especially partial. This observation fell to the ground, 
 like so many other theories which excite the philosophical smile, and 
 which men of science name poetry. 
 
 But it has not been made in vain, for an enlightened amateur 
 had formed here, in Paris, a collection of living birds. However 
 constant his attentions, a very rare she-parrot which he had obtained 
 remained obstinately barren. He ascertained in what kind of plant 
 she made her nest, and commissioned a person to procure it for him.
 
 CONCLUSION. 307 
 
 It could not be got alive ; he received it leafless and branchless ; a 
 simple dead trunk. It mattered not ; the bird, in this hollow trunk 
 discovered her accustomed place, and did not fail to make therein 
 her nest. She laid eggs, she hatched them, and now her owner has a 
 colony of young ones. 
 
 To re-create all the conditions of abode, food, vegetable environ- 
 ment, the harmonies of every kind which shall deceive the exile into 
 a forgetfulness of his country, is not only a scientific question, but a 
 task of ingenious invention. 
 
 To determine the limit of slavery, of freedom, of alliance and 
 collaboration with ourselves, proper for each individual creature, is 
 one of the gravest subjects which can occupy us. 
 
 A new art is this ; nor shall you succeed in it without a moral 
 gravity, a refinement, a delicacy of appreciation which as yet are 
 scarcely understood, and shall only exist perhaps when Woman under- 
 takes those scientific studies from which she has hitherto been excluded. 
 
 This art supposes a tenderness unlimited in justice and wisdom. 
 
 :
 
 llMISTfiATIVE MOTES.'
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 THE chief illustration of a book is incontestably the formula in 
 which it is summed up. Here it is, then, in few words : 
 
 This book has considered the bird in himself, and but little in 
 relation to man. 
 
 The bird, bom in a much lower condition than man (oviparous, 
 like the serpent), possesses three advantages over him, which are his 
 special mission : 
 
 I. The wing, /light, an unique power, which is the dream of man. 
 Every other creature is slow. Compared with the falcon or swallow, 
 the Arab horse is a snail. 
 
 II. Flight itself does not appertain solely to the wing, but to an 
 incomparable power of respiration and vision. The bird is peculiarly 
 the son of air and light. 
 
 III. An essentially electrical being, the bird sees, knows, and 
 foresees earth and sky, the weather, the seasons. Whether through 
 an intimate relation with the globe, whether through a prodigious 
 memory of localities and routes, he is always facing eastward, and 
 always knows his path. 
 
 He swoops ; he penetrates ; he attains what man shall never 
 attain. This is evident, particularly in his marvellous war against 
 the reptile and the insect.
 
 312 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 Add the marvellous work of continual purification of everything 
 dangerous and unclean, which some species accomplish. If this war 
 a*id this work ceased but for one day, man would disappear from the 
 earth. 
 
 This daily victory of the beloved son of light over death, over a 
 murderous and tenebrous life, is the fitting theme of his song, of 
 that hymn of joy with which the bird salutes each Dawn. 
 
 But, besides song, the bird has many other languages. Like 
 man, he prattles, recites, converses. He and man are the only beings 
 which have really a language. Man and the bird are the voice of 
 the world. 
 
 The bird, with its gift of augury, is ever drawing near to man, 
 who is ever inflicting injury upon him. He undoubtedly divines, 
 and has a presentiment of, what he will one day become when 
 he emerges from the barbarism in which he is now unhappily 
 plunged. 
 
 He recognizes in him the creature unique, sanctified, and blessed, 
 who ought to be the arbiter of all, w T ho should accomplish the destiny 
 of this globe by one supreme act of good the union of all life and 
 the reconciliation of all beings. 
 
 This pacific union must after a time be effected by a great art of 
 education and initiation, which man begins to comprehend. 
 
 Page 64. Training for flight (see also p. 84). Is it wrong for 
 man, in his reveries, to beguile himself into a belief that he will one 
 day be more than man, to attribute to himself wings ? Dream or pre- 
 sentiment, it matters not. 
 
 It is certain that a power of flight such as the bird possesses is 
 truly a sixth sense. It would be absurd to see in it only an auxiliary
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 31?? 
 
 of touch. (See, among other works, Huber, Vol dcs oiseaux de proie, 
 1784). 
 
 The wing is so rapid and so infallible only because it is aided by 
 a visual faculty which has not its equal in all creation. 
 
 The bird, we must confess, lives wholly in the air, in the light. 
 If there be a sublime life, a life of fire, it is this. 
 
 Who surveys and descries all earth ? Who measures it with his 
 glance and his wdng ? Who knows all its paths ? And not in any 
 beaten route, but at the same time in every direction : for where is 
 not the bird's track ? 
 
 His relations with heat, electricity, and magnetism, all the impon- 
 derable forces, are scarcely known to us ; we see them, however, in 
 his singular meteorological prescience. 
 
 If we had seriously studied the matter, we should have had the 
 balloon for some thousands of years ; but even with the balloon, and 
 the balloon capable of being steered, we should still be enormously 
 behind the bird. To imitate its mechanism, and exactly reproduce 
 its details, is not to possess the agreement, the ensemble, the unity 
 of action, which moves the whole with so much facility and with such 
 terrible swiftness. 
 
 Let us renounce, for this life at least, these higher gifts, and 
 confine ourselves to examine the two machines our own and the 
 bird's in those points where they differ least. 
 
 The human machine is superior in what is its smallest peculiarity, 
 its susceptibility of adaptation to the most diverse purposes, and, above 
 all, in its omnipuissance of the hand. 
 
 On the other hand, he has far less unity and centralization. Our 
 inferior limbs, our thighs and legs, which are very long, perform 
 eccentric movements far from the central point of action. Circulation 
 is very slow ; a thing perceptible in those last moments, when the 
 body is dead at the feet before the heart has ceased to throb. 
 
 The bird, almost spherical in form, is certainly the apex, divine 
 and sublime, of living centralization. We can neither see nor imagine 
 a higher degree of unity. From his excess of concentration he derives
 
 314 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 his great personal force, but it implies his extreme individuality, his 
 isolation, his social weakness. 
 
 The profound, the marvellous solidarity, which is found in the 
 higher genera of insects, as in the bees and ants, is not discovered 
 among birds. Flocks of them are common, but true republics are 
 rare. 
 
 Family ties are very strong in their influence, such as maternity 
 and love. Brotherhood, the sympathy of species, the mutual assist- 
 ance rendered even by different kinds, are not unknown. Never- 
 theless, fraternity is strong among them in the inferior line. The 
 whole heart of the bird is in his love, in his nest. 
 
 There lies his isolation, his feebleness, his dependence ; there also 
 the temptation to seek for himself a defender. 
 
 The most exalted of living beings is not the less one of those 
 which the most eagerly demand protection. 
 
 Page 67. On the life of the bird in the egg. I draw these details 
 from the accurate M. Duvernoy. Ovology in our days has become a 
 science. Yet I know but a few treatises specially devoted to the bird's 
 egg. The oldest is that of an Abbe Manesse, written in the last cen- 
 tury, very verbose, and not very instructive (the MS. is preserved in 
 
 the Museum Library). The same library possesses the German work 
 of Wirfing and Gunther on nests and eggs ; and another, also German,
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 315 
 
 whose illustrations appear of a superior character, although still 
 defective. I have seen a part of a new collection of engravings, much 
 more carefully executed. 
 
 Page 14. Gelatinous and nourishing seas. Humboldt, in one 
 of his early works (" Scenes in the Tropics "), was the first, I think, 
 to authenticate this fact. He attributes it to the prodigious quantity 
 of medusae, and other analogous creatures, in a decomposed state in 
 these waters. If, however, such a cadaverous dissolution really pre- 
 vailed there, would it not render the waters fatal to the fish, instead 
 of nourishing them ? Perhaps this phenomenon should be attributed 
 rather to nascent life than to life extinct, to that first living fermen- 
 tation in which the lowest microscopic organizations develop them- 
 selves. 
 
 It is especially in the Polar Seas, whose aspect is so wild and 
 desolate, that this characteristic is observed. Life there abounds in 
 such excess that the colour of the waters is completely changed by 
 it. They are of an intense olive-green, thick with living matter and 
 nutriment. 
 
 Page 91. Our Museum. In speaking of its collections, I may 
 not forget its valuable library, which now includes that of Cuvier, and 
 has been enriched by donations from all the physicists of Europe. I 
 
 have had occasion to acknowledge veiy warmly the courtesy of the 
 conservator, M. Desnoyers, and of M. le Docteur Lemercier, who has
 
 316 ILLUSTKATIVE NOTES. 
 
 obligingly supplied me with a number of pamphlets and curious 
 memoirs from his private collection. 
 
 Page 94t. Buffon. I think that now-a-dayswe too readily forget 
 that this great generalizer has not the less received and reeorded a 
 number of very accurate observations furnished him by men of special 
 vocations, officers of the royal hunt, gamekeepers, marines, and persons 
 of every profession. 
 
 Page 96. The Penguin. The brother of the auk, but less de- 
 graded ; he carries his wings like a veritable bird, though they are 
 only membranes floating on an evoided breast. The more rarified 
 air of our northern pole, where he lives, has already expanded his 
 lungs, and the breast-bone begins to project. The legs, less closely 
 confined to the body, better maintain its equilibrium, and the port 
 and attitude gain in confidence. There is here a notable difference 
 between the analogous products of the two hemispheres. 
 
 
 Page 103. The Petrel, the mariners terror. The legend of the 
 petrel gliding upon the waves, around the ship which he appears to 
 lead to perdition, is of Dutch origin. This is just as it ought to 
 be. The Dutch, who voyage en famille, and carry with them their 
 wives, their children, even their domestic animals, have been more 
 susceptible to evil auguries than other navigators. The hardiest of 
 all, perhaps true amphibians they have not the less been anxious 
 and imaginative, hazarding not only their lives, but their affections,
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 317 
 
 and exposing to the fantastic chances of the sea the beloved home, a 
 world of tenderness. That small lumbering bark, which is in truth 
 a floating house, will nevertheless go, ever rolling across the seas 
 of the North, the great Arctic Ocean, and the furious Baltic, accom- 
 plishing without pause the most dangerous voyages, as from Amster- 
 dam to Cronstadt. We laugh at these ugly vessels and their 
 antiquated build, but he who observes how plenteously they combine 
 the two purposes of store-room for the cargo and accommodation for 
 the family, can never see them in the ports of Holland without a 
 lively interest, or without lavishing on them his good wishes. 
 
 Page 113. Epiovnis. The remains of this gigantic bird and its 
 enormous egg may be seen in the Museum. It is computed that its 
 size was fivefold that of the ostrich. How much we must regret 
 that our rich collection of fossils, or the major part, lies buried in the 
 drawers of the Museum for want of room. For thirty or forty thou- 
 sand francs a wooden gallery might be constructed, in which the 
 whole could find opportunities of display. 
 
 Meanwhile, we argue &s if these vast studies, now in their very 
 infancy, had already been exhausted. Who knows but that man has 
 only seen the threshold of the prodigious world of the dead ? He 
 has scarcely scratched the surface of the globe. The deeper explora- 
 tions to which he is constrained by the thousand novel needs of art 
 and industry (as that, for example, of piercing the Alps for a new 
 railway) will open to science unexpected prospects. Palaeontology as 
 yet is built upon the narrow foundation of a minimum number of 
 facts. If we remember that the dead owing to the thousands of 
 years the globe has already lived are enormously more numerous 
 than the living, we cannot but consider this method of reasoning
 
 318 4 ILLUSTKATIVE NOTES. 
 
 upon a few specimens very audacious. It is a hundred, nay, a thou- 
 sand to one, that so many millions of dead, once disinterred, will con- 
 vict us of having erred, at least, through incomplete enumeration. 
 
 Page 113. Man had perished a hundred times. Here we trace 
 one of the early causes of the limited confederacy originally existing 
 between man and the animal a compact forgotten by our ungrateful 
 pride, and without which, nevertheless, the existence of man had 
 been impossible. 
 
 When the colossal birds whose remains we are constantly exhuming 
 had prepared for him the globe, had subjugated the crawling, climbing 
 life which at first predominated when man came upon the earth to 
 confront what remained of the reptiles, to confront those new but not less 
 formidable inhabitants of our planet, the tiger and the lion he found 
 on his side the bird, the dog, and the elephant. 
 
 At Alexandria may be seen the last few individuals of those 
 giant dogs which could strangle a lion. It was not through terror 
 that these formidable animals allied themselves with man, but 
 through natural sympathy, and their peculiar antipathy to the feline 
 race, the giant cat (the tiger or lion). 
 
 Without the alliance of the dog against beasts of prey, and that 
 of the bird against serpents and crocodiles (which the bird kills in 
 the veiy egg), man had assuredly been lost. 
 
 The useful friendship of the horse originated in the same cause. 
 You may trace it in the indescribable and convulsive horror which 
 every young horse experiences at the mere odour of the lion. He 
 attaches, he surrenders himself to man. 
 
 Had he not possessed the horse, the ox, and the camel had he 
 been compelled to bear on his back and shoulders the heavy burdens
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 319 
 
 of which they relieve him man would have remained the miserable 
 slave of his feeble organization. Borne down by the habitual dispro- 
 portion of weight and strength, either he would have abandoned 
 labour, have lived upon chance victims, without art or progress ; or, 
 rather, he would have lived earth's everlasting porter crooked, 
 dragging, and drawing, with sunken head, never gazing on the sky, 
 never thinking, never raising himself to the heights of invention. 
 
 Page 132. On the po^uer of insects. It is not only in the Tropical 
 world that they are formidable ; at the commencement of the last 
 century half Holland perished because the piles which strengthen its 
 dykes simultaneously gave way, invisibly undermined by a worm 
 named the taret. 
 
 This redoubtable nibbler, which is often a foot in length, never 
 betrays itself ; it only works within. One morning the beam breaks, 
 the framework yields, the ship engulfed founders in the waves. 
 
 How shall we reach, how discover it ? A bird knows it the 
 lapwing, the guardian of Holland. And it is thus a notable impru- 
 dence to destroy, as has been done, his eggs. (Quatrefages, Souvenirs 
 d'un Naturaliste.') 
 
 France, for more than a century, has suffered from the impor- 
 tation of a monster not less terrible the termite, which devours 
 dry wood just as the taret consumes wet wood. The single 
 female of each swarm has the horrible fecundity of laying daily 
 eighty thousand eggs. La Rochelle begins to fear the fate of 
 that American city which is suspended in the air, the termites 
 having devoured all its foundations, and excavated immense cata- 
 combs beneath.
 
 320 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 In Guiana the dwellings of the termites are enormous hillocks, 
 fifteen feet in height, which men only venture to attack from a dis- 
 tance, and by means of gunpowder. You may judge, therefore, the 
 importance of the ant-eater, which dares to enter this gulf, and seek 
 out the horrible female whence issues so accursed a torrent. 
 (Smeathmann, Memoire sur les Termites.'] 
 
 Does climate save us ? The termites prosper in France. Here, 
 too, the cockchafer flourishes ; and even on the northern slopes 
 of the Alps, under the very breath of the glaciers, it devours vegeta- 
 tion. In the presence of such an enemy every insectivorous bird 
 should be respected ; at least, the canton of Vaud has recently placed 
 the swallow under the protection of the law. (See the work of 
 Tschudi.) 
 
 Page 134. You frequently detect there a strong odour of music. 
 The plain of Cumana, says Humboldt, presents, after heavy rains, an 
 extraordinary phenomenon. The earth, moistened and reheated by 
 the sun's rays, gives forth that odour of musk which, under the 
 torrid zone, is common to animals of very different classes to the 
 jaguar, the small species of the tiger-cat, the cabiai, the galinazo vul- 
 ture, the crocodile, the viper, the rattlesnake. The gaseous emana- 
 tions which are the vehicles of this aroma appear only to disengage 
 themselves in proportion as the soil enclosing the debris of an innu- 
 merable quantity of reptiles, worms, and insects, becomes impregnated 
 with water. Everywhere that one stirs up the soil, one is struck by 
 the mass of organic substances which alternately develop, transform, 
 or decompose. Nature in these climates appears more active, more 
 prolific, one might say more lavish of life.
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 321 
 
 Pages 136, 137. Humming-birds and colibris. The eminent 
 naturalists (Lesson, Azara, Stedmann, &c.) who have supplied so 
 many excellent descriptions of these birds, are not, unfortunately, as 
 rich in details of their manners, their food, their character. 
 
 As to the terrible unhealthiness of the places where they live 
 (and live with so intense a life), the narratives of the old travellers 
 of Labat and others are fully confirmed by the moderns. Messieurs 
 Durville and Lesson, in their voyage to New Guiana, scarcely 
 dared to cross the threshold of its profound virgin forests, with their 
 strange and terrible beauty. 
 
 The most fantastic aspect of these forests their prodigious fairy- 
 like enchantment of nocturnal illumination by myriads of fire-flies 
 is attested and very forcibly described, as far as relates to the coun- 
 tries adjoining Panama, by a French traveller, M. Caqueray, who has 
 recently visited them. (See his Journal in the new Revue Fran$aise, 
 10th June 1855.) 
 
 Page 153. The valuable museum of anatomical collections that 
 of Doctor Auzoux. I cannot too warmly thank, on this occasion, our 
 esteemed and skilful professor, who condescends to instruct us igno- 
 rant people, men of letters, men of the world, and women. He 
 willed that anatomy should descend to all, should become popular ; 
 and it is done. His admirable imitations, his lucid demonstrations, 
 
 21
 
 322 ILLUSTKATIVE NOTES. 
 
 gradually work out that great revolution whose full extent can 
 already be perceived. Shall I dare to tell men of science my inmost 
 thought ? They themselves will have an advantage in possessing 
 always at hand these objects of study under so convenient a form 
 and in enlarged proportions, which greatly diminish the fatigue 
 of attention. A thousand objects, which seem to us different 
 because different in size, recover their analogies, and reappear 
 in their true relative forms, through the simple process of enlarge- 
 ment. 
 
 America, I may add, appears more keenly sensible of these advan- 
 tages than we are. An American speculator had desired M. Auzoux 
 to supply him yearly with two thousand copies of his figure of man, 
 being certain of disposing of them in all the small towns, and even in 
 the villages. Every American village, says M. Auzoux, endeavours 
 to obtain a museum, an observatory, &c. 
 
 Page 157. The suppression of pain. To prevent death is 
 undoubtedly impossible ; but we may prolong life. We may even- 
 tually render rarer, less cruel, and almost suppress pain. 
 
 That the hardened old world laughs at this expression is so much 
 the better. We have seen this spectacle in the days when our 
 Europe, barbarized by war, centred all medical art in surgery, and 
 only knew how to cure by the knife by a horrible prodigality of 
 suffering, young America discovered the miracle of that profound 
 dream in which all pain is annihilated.* 
 
 * Our author refers to the discovery of the anaesthetic properties of ether by an 
 American. It was a surgeon of old Europe, however, that gave the world the far more 
 powerful anaesthetic of chloroform. Translator.
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 323 
 
 Page 157. The useful equilibrium of life and death. Numerous 
 species of birds no longer make a halt in France. One with difficult}' 
 descries them flying at inaccessible elevations, deploying their wings 
 in haste, accelerating their passage, saying, " Pass on, pass on 
 quickly ! Let us avoid the land of death, the land of destruction !" 
 
 Provence, and many other departments in the south, are barren 
 deserts, peopled by every living tribe, and therefore vegetable 
 nature is sadly impoverished. You do not interrupt with impunity 
 the natural harmonies. The bird levies a tax on the plant, but he is 
 its protector. 
 
 It is a matter of notoriety that the bustard has almost disappeared 
 from Champagne and Provence. The heron has passed away ; the 
 stork is rare. As we gradually encroach upon the soil, these species, 
 partial to dusty wastes and morasses, depart to seek a livelihood else- 
 where. Our progress in one sense is our poverty. In England the 
 same fact has been observed. (See the excellent articles on Sport 
 and Natural History, translated from Messrs. St. John, Knox, Gosse, 
 and others, in the Revue Britannique.) The heath-cock retires before 
 the step of the cultivator ; the quail passes into Ireland. The ranks 
 of the herons grow daily thinner before the utilitarian improvements 
 of the nineteenth century. But to these causes we must add tho 
 barbarism of man, which so heedlessly destroys a throng of innocent 
 species. Nowhere, says M. Pavie, a French traveller, is game more 
 timid than in our fields. 
 
 Woe to the ungrateful people ! And by this phrase I mean the 
 sporting crowd who, unmindful of the numerous benefits we owe to 
 animals, have exterminated innocent life. A terribla sentence of the 
 Creator weighs upon the tribes of sportsmen, they can create nothing.
 
 324 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 They originate no art, no industry. They have added nothing to the 
 hereditary patrimony of the human species. What has their heroism 
 profited the Indians of North America ? Having organized nothing, 
 having accomplished nothing permanent, these races, despite their 
 singular energy, have disappeared from the earth before inferior men, 
 the last emigrants of Europe. 
 
 Do not believe the axiom that huntsmen gradually develop into 
 agriculturists. It is not so they kill or die ; such is their whole 
 destiny. We see it clearly through experience. He who has killed, 
 will kill ; he who has created, will create. 
 
 In the want of emotion which every man suffers from his birth, 
 the child who satisfies it habitually by murder, by a miniature 
 ferocious drama of surprise and treason, of the torture of the weak, 
 will find no great enjoyment in the gentle and tranquil emotions 
 arising from the progressive success of toil and study, from the limited 
 industry which does everything itself. To create, to destroy these 
 are the two raptures of infancy : to create is a long, slow process ; to 
 destroy is quick and easy. The least act of creation implies those best 
 gifts of the Creator and of kindly Nature : gentleness and patience. 
 
 It is a shocking and hideous thing to see a child partial to 
 "sport ;" to see woman enjoying and admiring murder, and encourag- 
 ing her child. That delicate and sensitive woman would not give 
 him a knife, but she gives him a gun : kill at a distance be it so ! 
 for we do not see the suffering. And this mother will think it 
 admirable that her son, kept confined to his room, shall drive off ennui 
 by plucking the wings from flies, by torturing a bird or a little dog. 
 
 Far-seeing mother ! She will know when too late the evil of 
 having formed a hard heart. Aged and weak, rejected of the world, 
 she will experience in her turn her son's brutality. 
 
 ****** 
 
 But rifle practice ? They will object to you. Must not the child 
 grow skilful in killing, that, from murder to murder, he may at last 
 arrive at the surpassing feat of killing the flying swallow ? The only 
 country in Europe where everybody knows how to handle a musket is
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 826 
 
 that where the bird is least exposed to slaughter. The land of William 
 Tell knew how to place before her children a juster and more exalted 
 object when they liberated their country. 
 
 ****** 
 
 France is not cruel. Why, then, this love of murder, this exter- 
 mination of the animal world ? 
 
 It is the impatient people, the young people, the childish people, 
 in a rude and restless childhood. If they cannot be doing in creating, 
 they will be doing by destroying. 
 
 But what they most fatally injure is themselves ! A violent 
 education, stormily impassioned in love or severity, crushes in the 
 child, withers, chokes up the first moral flower of natural sensitiveness, 
 all that was purest of the maternal milk, the germ of universal love 
 which rarely blooms again. 
 
 Among too many children we are saddened by their almost incred- 
 ible sterility. A few recover from it in the long circle of life, when 
 they have become experienced and enlightened men. But the first 
 freshness of the heart ? It shall return no more.* 
 
 How is it that this nation, otherwise bom under such felicitous 
 circumstances, is, with rare and local exceptions, accursed with so 
 singular an incapacity for harmony ? It has its own peculiar songs, 
 its charming little melodies of vivacity and mirth. But it needs a 
 prolonged effort, a special education, to attain to harmony. 
 
 Page 158. Flattening of the brain. The weight of the brain, 
 compared with that of the body, is, in the 
 
 Ostrich, in the ratio of 1 to 1200 
 
 Goose, Ito 360 
 
 Duck, '. Ito 267 
 
 Eagle, Ito 160 
 
 * Compare Byron, in " Don Jean."
 
 32G ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 Plover, Ito 122 
 
 Falcon 1 to 102 
 
 Paroquet 1 to 45 
 
 Robin 1 to 32 
 
 Jay Ito 28 
 
 Chaffinch, cock, sparrow, goldfinch, Ito 25 
 
 Hooded tomtit Ito 16 
 
 Blue-cap tomtit, Ito 12 
 
 (Estimate of Holler and Leuret.} 
 
 Page 158. The noble falcon. The noble birds (the falcon, ger- 
 falcon, saker) are those which hold their prey by the talon, and kill 
 it with the bill : their bill, for this purpose, is toothed. The ignoble 
 birds (the eagle, the kite, &c.) are for the most part swift of flight 
 (voiliers} : these employ their talons to rend and choke their victims. 
 The rameurs rise with difficulty, which enables the voiliers to escape 
 them the more easily. The tactics of the former are to feign, in 
 the first place, to rise to a great height ; and then, by suffering 
 themselves to drop, they disconcert the mano3uvres of the voiliers. 
 (Huber, Vol des Oiseaux de Prole, 1784, 4to. He was the first of 
 that clever lineage, Huber of the birds, Huber of the bees, Huber of 
 the ants.) 
 
 Page 177. Its happiness in the morning, when terrors vanish! 
 "Before " (says Tschudi) " the vermeil tints of the early dew have 
 announced the approach of the sun, oftentimes before even the lightest 
 gleam has heralded dawn in the east, while the stars still sparkle in
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 327 
 
 the sombre azure of heaven, a low murmur resounds on the summit 
 of a venerable pine, and is speedily followed by a more or less distinct 
 prattling ; then the notes arise, and an interminable series of keen 
 sounds strike the air on every side like a clang of swords continually 
 hurtled one against another. It is the coupling time of the wood- 
 cock. With his eye a-flame, he dances and springs on the branch, 
 while below him, in the copse, his hens repose tranquilly, and rever- 
 ently contemplate the mad antics of their lord and master. He is 
 not long left alone to animate the forest. The mavis rises in his 
 turn, shaking the dew from his glittering feathers. Behold him 
 whetting his bill upon the branch, and leaping from bough to bough, 
 up to the very crest of the maple tree where he has slept, astonished 
 to find nearly all life still slumbering in the forest, though the dawn 
 has taken the place of night. Twice, thrice, he hurls his fanfare at 
 the echoes of the mountain and the valley, which a dense mist still 
 envelopes. 
 
 "Thin columns of white smoke escape from the roof of the cot- 
 tages ; the dogs bark around the farm-yards ; and the bells ring 
 suspended to the neck of the cow. The birds now quit their thickets, 
 flutter their wings, and dart into the air to salute the sun, which 
 once more comes to bless them with his bounteous light. More than 
 one poor little sparrow rejoices that he has escaped the perils of the 
 darkness. Perched on a little twig, he had trusted to enjoy his 
 slumber without alarm, his head buried beneath his wing, when, by the 
 ray of a star, he discerned the noiseless screech-owl gliding through 
 the trees, intent upon some misdeed. The pole-cat stole from 
 the valley-depth, the ermine descended from the rock, the pine- 
 marten quitted his nest, the fox prowled among the bushes. All 
 these enemies the poor little one watched during this terrible night. 
 On his tree, on the earth, in the air destruction menaced him on 
 every side. How long, how long were the hours when, not daring to 
 move, his only protection was the young leaves which screened him ! 
 And now, how great the pleasure to ply his unfettered wing, to live 
 in safety, protected, defended by the light !
 
 328 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 "The chaffinch raises with all his energy his clear and sonorous 
 note ; the robin sings from the summit of the larch, the goldfinch 
 amid the alder-groves, the blackbird and the bullfinch beneath the 
 leafy arbours. The tomtit, the wren, and the troglodyte mingle their 
 voices. The stockdove coos, and the woodpecker smites his tree. 
 But far above these joyous utterances re-echo the melodious strains of 
 the woodlark and the inimitable song of the thrash." 
 
 Page 185. Migrations. For the famished Arab, the lank in- 
 habitant of the desert, the arrival of the migrating birds, weary and 
 heavy at this season, and, therefore, easy to catch, is a blessing from 
 God, a celestial manna. The Bible tells us of the raptures of the 
 Israelites, when, during their wanderings in Arabia Petrsea, fasting 
 and enfeebled, they suddenly saw descending upon them the winged 
 food : not the locusts of abstemious Elias, not the bread with which 
 the raven nourished his bowels, but the quail heavy with fat, delicious 
 and yet substantial, which voluntarily fell into their hands. They 
 ate to repletion ; and no longer regretted the rich flesh-pots of 
 Pharaoh. 
 
 I willingly excuse the gluttony of the famished. But what shall 
 I say of our people, in the richest countries of Europe, who, after 
 harvest and vintage-time, with barns and cellars brimming full, pursue 
 with no less fury these poor travellers ? Thin or fat, they are equally 
 good : they would eat even the swallows ; they devour the song-birds, 
 "those which have only a voice." Their wild frenzy dooms the 
 nightingale to the spit, plugks and kills the household guest, the poor 
 robin, which yesterday fed from their hands. 
 
 The migration season is a season of slaughter. The law which 
 impels southward the tribes of birds is, for millions, a law of death.
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 329 
 
 Many depart, few return ; at each stage of their route they must 
 pay a tribute' of blood. The eagle waits on his crag, man watches in 
 the valley. He who escapes the tyrant of the air, falls a victim to 
 the tyrant of the earth. "A fortunate opportunity !" exclaims the 
 child or the sportsman, the ferocious child with whom murder is a 
 jest. "God has willed it so !" mutters the pious glutton; "let us be 
 resigned !" These are the judgments of man upon the carnival of 
 massacre. As yet we know nothing more, for history has not written 
 the opinions of the massacred. 
 
 Migrations are exchanges for every country (except the poles, at 
 the epoch of winter). The particular condition of climate or food, 
 which decides the departure of one species of birds, is precisely that 
 which determines the arrival of another species. When the swallow 
 quits us at the autumn rains, we note the arrival of the army of 
 plovers and peewits in quest of the lobworms driven from their lurking- 
 places by the floods. In October, and as the cold increases, the green- 
 finches, the yellow-hammers, the wrens, replace the song-birds which 
 have deserted us. The snipes and partridges descend from their moun- 
 tains at the moment when the quail and the thrush emigrate towards 
 the south. It is then, too, that the legions of the aquatic species quit 
 the extreme north for those temperate climes where the seas, the 
 lakes, and the pools, do not freeze. The wild geese, the swans, the 
 divers, the ducks, the teal, cleave the. air in battle array, and swoop 
 down upon the lakes of Scotland and Hungary, and our marshes of 
 the south. The delicate stork flies southward, when his cousin, the 
 
 crane, sets out from the north, where his supplies begin to fail him. 
 Passing over our lands, he pays us tribute by delivering us from the
 
 330 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 last reptiles and batrachians which a warm autumnal breeze has 
 restored to life. 
 
 Page 188. My muse is the light. j^nd yet the nightingale loses 
 it when he returns to us from Asia. But all true artists require that 
 it should be softly ordered, blended with rays and shadows. Rem- 
 brandt in his paintings has exhausted the effects, at once warm and soft, 
 of the science of chiaro-oscuro. The nightingale begins his song when 
 the gloom of evening mingles with the last beams of the sun ; and 
 hence it is that we tremble at his voice. Our soul in the misty and 
 uncertain hours of the gloaming regains possession of the inner light. 
 
 Page 215. Do not say, " Winter is on my side." "While M. de 
 Custine was travelling in Russia, he tells us that, at the fair of 
 Nijni-Novgorod, he was frightened by the multitude of Uattes which 
 thronged his chamber, with an infectious smell, and which could not 
 be got rid of. Dr. Tschudi, a careful traveller, who has explored 
 Switzerland in its smallest details, assures us that at the breath of 
 the south wind, which melts the snow in twelve hours, innumerable 
 hosts of cockchafers ravage the country. They are not a less terrible 
 scourge than the locusts to the south. 
 
 During our Italian tour, my wife and I made an observation 
 which will not have escaped the notice of naturalists ; namely, that 
 the cockchafer does not die in autumn. From the inhabited portions 
 of our palazzo, almost entirely shut up in winter, we saw clouds of 
 these insects emerge in the spring, which had slept peacefully in ex- 
 pectation of its warmth. Moreover, in that country, even ephemeral 
 insects do not perish. Gigantic gnats wage war against us every 
 night, demanding our blood with sharp and strident voice. 
 
 If, by the side of these proofs of the multiplication of insects, even
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 331 
 
 in temperate or cold countries, we put the fact that the swallow is 
 not satisfied with less than one thousand flies per diem; that a couple 
 of sparrows carry home to their young four thousand three hundred 
 caterpillars or beetles weekly; a tomtit three hundred daily; we see 
 at once the evil and the remedy. We quote these figures from M. 
 Quatrefages (Souvenirs), and from a letter written by Mr. Walter 
 Trevelyan to the editor of " The Birds of Great Britain," translated 
 in the Revue Britannique, July 7, 1850. 
 
 I offer the reader a very incomplete summary of the services ren- 
 dered to us by the birds of our climate. 
 
 Many are the assiduous guardians of our herds. The heron garde- 
 boeuf, making use of his bill as a lancet, cuts the flesh of the ox to 
 extract from it a parasitical worm which sucks the blood and life of 
 the animal. The wagtails and the starlings render very similar 
 services to our cattle. The swallows destroy myriads of winged 
 insects which never rest, and which we see dancing in the sun's rays ; 
 gnats, midges, flies. The goat-suckers and the martinets, twilight 
 hunters, effect the disappearance of the cockchafers, the gnats, the 
 moths, and a swarm of nibbling insects (rongeurs), which work only 
 by night. The magpie hunts after the insects which, concealed be- 
 neath the bark of the tree, live upon its sap. The humming-bird, 
 the fly-catcher, the soui-mangas, in tropical countries, purify the 
 chalice of the flower. The bee-eater, in all lands, carries on a fierce 
 hostility against the wasps which ruin our fruit. The goldfinch, 
 partial to uncultivated soil and the seeds of the thistle, prevents the 
 latter from spreading over the ground. Our garden birds, the chaf- 
 finches, blackcaps, blackbirds, tits, strip our fruit-bushes and great trees 
 of the grubs, caterpillars, and beetles, whose ravages would be incal- 
 culable. A large number of these insects remain during winter in 
 the egg or the larva, waiting for spring to burst into life ; but in 
 this state they are diligently hunted up by the mavis, the wren, the 
 troglodyte. The former turn over the leaves which strew the earth ; 
 the latter climb to the loftiest branches, or clear out the trunk. In 
 wet meadows, you may see the crows and storks boring the ground
 
 332 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 to seize on the white worm (ver blanc) which, for three years before 
 metamorphosing into a cockchafer, gnaws at the roots of our grasses. 
 
 Here we pause, not to weary our reader, and yet the list of useful 
 birds is scarcely glanced at. 
 
 Page 228. The woodpecker, as an augur. Are the methods 
 of observation adopted by meteorology serious and efficacious ? Some 
 men of science doubt it. It might, perhaps, be worth while examining 
 if we could not deduce any part of the meteorology of the ancients 
 from their divination by birds. The principal passages are pointed 
 out in Pauly's Encyclopaedia (Stuttgard), article Divinatio. 
 
 "The woodpecker is a favoured bird in the steppes of Poland and 
 Russia. In these sparsely wooded plains he constantly directs his 
 course towards the trees ; by following him, you discover a hidden 
 ravine, a little later some springs, and finally descend towards the 
 river. Under the bird's guidance you may thus explore and recon- 
 noitre the country." (Mickiewicz, Les Slaves, vol. i., p. 200.) 
 
 Page 235. Song. Do not separate what God has joined together. 
 If you place a bird in a cage beside you, his song quickly fatigues 
 you with its sonorous timbre and its monotony. But in the grand 
 concert of Nature, that bird would supply his note, and complete the 
 harmony. This powerful voice would subdue itself to the modulations 
 of the air ; soft and tender it would glide, borne upon the breeze.
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 833 
 
 And then, in the deep -woody depths, the singer incessantly moves 
 from place to place, now drawing near, and now receding ; hence arise 
 those distant effects which induce a delightful reverie, and that delicate 
 cadence which thrills the heart. 
 
 Under our roof his song would be ever the same ; but on the 
 pinions of the wind the music is divine, it penetrates and ravishes 
 the soul. 
 
 Page 241. The robin hastens, singing, to enjoy his share of the 
 warmth. I find this admirable passage in " The Conquest of England 
 by the Normans " (by Augustin Thierry). The chief of the barbarous 
 Saxons assembles his priests and wise men to ascertain if they will 
 become Christians. One of them speaks as follows : 
 
 " Thou mayst remember, king, a thing which sometimes happens, 
 when thou art seated at table with thy captains and men-at-arms, in 
 the winter season, and when a fire is kindled and the hall well 
 warmed, while there are wind and rain and snow without. There 
 comes a little bird, which traverses the room on fluttering wing, 
 entering by one door and flying out at another : the moment of its 
 
 passage is full of sweetness for it, it feels neither the rain nor the 
 storm ; but this interval is brief, the bird vanishes in the twinkling 
 of an eye, and from winter passes away into winter. Such seems to 
 me the life of man upon this earth, and its limited duration, compared 
 with the length of the time which precedes and follows it."
 
 334 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 From winter he passes into winter. " Of wintra in winter eft 
 cymeth." 
 
 Page 247. Nests and Hatching. In the vast extent of the 
 islands linking India to Australia, a species of bird of the family 
 Gallinacece dispenses with the labour of hatching her eggs. Raising 
 an enormous hillock of grasses whose fermentation will produce a 
 degree of heat favourable to the process, the parents, as soon as this 
 task is completed, trust to Nature for the reproduction of their kind. 
 Mr. Gould, who furnishes these curious details, speaks also of some 
 curious nests constructed by another species of bird. It consists of 
 an avenue formed by small branches planted in the ground, and woven 
 together at their upper extremities in the fashion of a dome. The 
 structure is consolidated by enlaced and intertwined herbs. This 
 first stage of their labour accomplished, the artists proceed to the work 
 of decoration. They seek in every direction, and often at a distance, 
 the gaudiest feathers, the finest polished shells, and the most brilliant 
 stones, to strew over the entrance. This avenue would seem, however, 
 not to be the nest, but the place where the birds hold their first ren- 
 dezvous. (See the coloured plates in Mr. Gould's magnificent volume, 
 "Australian Birds.") 
 
 Page 266. Instinct and Reason. The ignorant and inattentive 
 think all things nearly alike. And Science perceives that all things 
 differ. According as we learn to observe, do these differences become 
 apparent; that imperceptible "shade," and worthless "almost," which 
 at the outset does not prevent us from confusing all things with one 
 another, really distinguishes them, and points out a notable discre- 
 pancy, a wide interval betwixt this object and that, a blank, a hiatus, 
 sometimes an enormous abyss, which separates and holds them apart.
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 335 
 
 so much so, that occasionally between these things, at first sight so 
 nearly alike, a whole world will intervene, without the power of 
 bringing them together. 
 
 It has been asserted and repeated that the works of insects pre- 
 sented an absolute similarity, a mechanical regularity. And yet our 
 Reaumurs and our Hubers have discovered numerous facts which 
 positively contradict this pretended symmetiy, especially in the case 
 of the ant, whose life is complicated with so many incidents, so many 
 unforeseen exigencies, that she would never provide against them but 
 for the rapid discernment, the promptitude of mind, which is one of 
 the most striking characteristics of her individuality. 
 
 It has been supposed that the nests of birds are always con- 
 structed on identical principles. Not at all. A close observation 
 reveals the fact that they differ according to the climate and the 
 weather. At New York, the baltimore makes a closely fitted nest, 
 to shelter him from the cold. At New Orleans his nest is left with 
 a free passage for the air to diminish the heat. The Canadian 
 partridges, which in winter cover themselves with a kind of small 
 pent-roof at Compiegne, under a milder sky do away with this pro- 
 tection, because they judge it to be useless. The same discernment 
 prevails in relation to the seasons. The American spring, in the open- 
 ing years of the present century, occurring very late, the woodpecker 
 (of Wilson) wisely made his nest two weeks later. I will venture to 
 add that I have seen, in southern France, this delicate appreciation 
 of climatic changes varying from year to year ; by an inexplicable 
 foresight, when the summer was likely to be cold, the nests were 
 always more thickly woven. 
 
 The guillemot of the north (mergulct), which fears above all things 
 the fox, on account of his partiality for her eggs, builds her nest on 
 a rock level with the water, so that, no sooner are they hatched than 
 the brood, however closely dogged by the plunderer, have time to 
 escape in the waves. On the other hand, here, on our coasts, where 
 her only enemy is man, she makes her nest on the loftiest and most 
 precipitous cliffs, where man can with difficulty reach it.
 
 336 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 Ignorant persons, and no less those naturalists who study natural 
 history in books only, acknowledge the differences existing between 
 species, but believe that the actions and labours of the individuals of 
 a species invariably correspond. Such a view is possible when you 
 have only seen things from above and afar, in a sublime generality. 
 But when the naturalist takes in hand his pilgrim's staff when, as 
 a modest, resolute, indefatigable pilgrim of Nature, he assumes his 
 shoes of iron all things change their aspect : he sees, notes, com- 
 pares numerous individual works in the labours of each species, seizes 
 their points of difference, and soon arrives at the conclusion which 
 logic had already suggested, that, in truth, no one thing resembles 
 another. In those works which appear identical to inexperienced 
 eyes, a Wilson and an Audubon have detected the diversities of an art 
 very variable according to means and places, according to the 
 characters and talents of the artists in a spontaneous infinity. So 
 extensive is the region of liberty, fancy, and ingegno. 
 
 Let us hope that our collections will bring together several 
 specimens of each species, arranged and classified according to the 
 talent and progress of the individual, recording as near as may be the 
 age of the birds which constructed the nests. 
 
 If these boundless diversities do not result from unrestrained activ- 
 ity and personal spontaneity, if you wish to refer them all to an iden- 
 tical instinct, you must, to support so miraculous a theory, make us 
 believe another miracle : that this instinct, although identical, pos- 
 sesses the singular elasticity of accommodating and proportioning 
 itself to a variety of circumstances which are incessantly changing, to 
 an infinity of hazardous chances. 
 
 What, then, will be the case if we find, in the history of animals, 
 such an act of pretended instinct as supposes a resistance to that very 
 course our instinctive nature would apparently desire ? What will 
 you say to the wounded elephant spoken of by Fouche' d'Obsonville ? 
 
 That judicious traveller, so utterly disinclined to romantic ten- 
 dencies, saw an elephant in India, which, having been wounded in 
 battle, went daily to the hospital that his wound might be dressed.
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 337 
 
 Now, guess wheat this wound might be. A burn. In this dangerous 
 Indian climate, where everything grows putrid, they are frequently 
 constrained to cauterize the sores. He endured this treatment 
 patiently, and went eveiy day to undergo it. He felt no antipathy 
 towards the surgeon who inflicted upon him so sharp an agony. He 
 groaned ; nothing more. He evidently understood that it was done 
 for his benefit ; that his torturer was his friend ; that this necessary 
 cruelty was designed for his cure. 
 
 Plainly this elephant acted upon reflection, and upon a blind 
 instinct ; he acted against nature in the strength and enlightenment 
 of his will. 
 
 Page 270. The master-nightingale. 1 owe this anecdote to a 
 lady well entitled to a judgment upon such questions to Madame 
 Garcia Viardot (the great singer). The Russian peasants, who pos- 
 sess a fine ear and a keen sensibility for Nature (compared with her 
 harshness towards them), said, when they occasionally heard the 
 Spanish cantatrice : " The nightingale does not sing so well." 
 
 Page 273. Still the little one hesitates, &e. " One day I was 
 walking with my son in the neighbourhood of Montier. We perceived 
 towards the north, on the Little Saleve, an eagle emerging from the 
 
 22
 
 338 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 windings of the rocks. When he was tolerably near the Great Saleve 
 he halted, and two eaglets, which he had carried on his back, at- 
 tempted to fly, at first very close to their teacher, and in narrow 
 circles ; then, a few minutes afterwards, feeling fatigued, they 
 returned to rest upon his back. Gradually their essays were- pro- 
 tracted, and at the close of the lesson the eaglets effected some much 
 more important flights, still under the eyes of their teacher of gym- 
 nastics. After about an hour's occupation the two scholars resumed 
 their post on the paternal back, and the eagle returned to the rock 
 from which he had started." (M. Chenvieres, of Geneva.) 
 
 Page 304. The small Chili falcon (cernicula). I extract this 
 statement from a new, curious, but little known work, written in 
 French by a Chilian : Le Chili, by B. Vicuna Mackenna (ed. 1855, 
 p. 100). Chili I take to be a most interesting country, which, by 
 the energy of its citizens, should considerably modify the unfavour- 
 able opinion entertained by the citizens of the United States in 
 reference to South Americans. America will not exist as a world, so 
 long as a common feeling shall be wanting between the two opposite 
 poles which ought to create her majestic harmony. 
 
 Final Note on the Winged Life. To appreciate beings so alien
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 339 
 
 from the conditions of our prosaic existence, we must for a moment 
 abandon earth, and become a sense apart. We get a glimpse of some- 
 thing inferior and superior, of something on this side and on that, the 
 limbs of the animal life on the borders of the life of the angels. In 
 proportion as we assume this sense, we lose the temptation of degrad- 
 ing the Avinged life that strange, delicate, mighty dream of God to 
 the vulgarities of earth. 
 
 To-day even, in a place infinitely unpoetic, neglected, squalid, and 
 obscure, among the black mud of Paris, and in the dank darkness of 
 an apartment scarcely better than a cavern, I saw, and I heard chirping, 
 in a subdued voice, a little creature which seemed not to belong to 
 this low world. It was a warbler, and one of a common species -not 
 the blackcap, which is prized so highly for his song. This one was 
 not then singing ; she chattered to herself, just a few notes, as mono- 
 tonous as her situation. For winter, shadow, captivity, all were 
 around her. The captive of a rough, rude man, of a speculator in 
 birds, she heard on every side sounds which silenced her song ; 
 powerful voices were above her head, a mocking-bird among them, 
 which rang out every moment their brilliant clarions. Generally, 
 she would be condemned to silence. She was accustomed, one could 
 perceive, to sing in a low tone. But in this limited flight, this 
 habitual resignation and half lamentation, might be detected a charm- 
 ing delicacy, a more than feminine softness (morbidezza). Add to 
 this the unique grace of her bosom and her motions, of her modest 
 red and white attire, which sparkled, however, with a bright sheeny 
 reflex. 
 
 I recalled to my mind the pictures in which Ingres and Delacroix 
 have shown us the captives of Algiers or the East, and exactly depicted 
 the dull resignation, the indifference, the weariness of their mono- 
 tonous lives, and also the decline (must we say the extinction ?) of 
 the inner fire. 
 
 But, alas! it was wholly different here. The flame burned in all 
 its strength. She was more and less than a woman. No comparison 
 was of any use. Inferior by right of her animal nature, by her
 
 340 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 pretty bird-masquerad$ she was lifted above by her wings, and by 
 the winged soul which sang in that little body. An all-powerful alibi 
 held her enthralled afar off, in her native grove, in the nest whence 
 she had been stolen in her infancy, or in her future love-nest. She 
 warbled five or six notes, and they kindled my very soul ; I myself, 
 for the moment armed with wings, accompanied her in her distant 
 dream.
 
 CALIFCT