Part 9

Their evident superiority over so great a number of birds is due to their longevity and to the experience which their excellent memory 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 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.

Part Second.

THE LIGHT.

THE NIGHT.

"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.

"This summer, when walking in my garden, I heard and I saw on a branch a bird singing to the setting sun; he inclined himself 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 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 sun, and at evening faithfully congregate to watch it setting on our 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 nightingale. They provoke the strain, and, like light, awaken bursts of harmony.

Even the bird's flight is influenced by it. Flight depends on the 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.

First, the fatal need of the stomach, which shackles all of us, but which especially persecutes that living flame, that 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 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 preserves 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 frightful 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 étoupée 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 progeny, 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 night 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.

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 felicitation 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 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 gratefully 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 benediction of the day. He is her priest and her augur, her divine and innocent voice.

STORM AND WINTER.

MIGRATIONS.

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 être averti, n'éprouva les orages-- La grue, avec effroi, s'élançant des vallées, Fuit ces noires vapeurs de la terre exhalées-- L'hirondelle en volant effleure le rivage; Tremblante pour ses oeufs, la fourmi déménage. Des lugubres corbeaux les noires légions Fendent l'air, qui frémit sous leurs longs bataillons-- Vois les oiseaux de mer, et ceux que les prairies Nourrissent près des eaux sur des rives fleuries. De leur séjour humide on les voit s'approcher, Offrir leur tête aux flots qui battent le rocher, Promener sur les eaux leur troupe vagabonde, Se plonger dans leur sein, reparaître sur l'onde, S'y replonger encore, et, par cent jeux divers, Annoncer les torrents suspendus dans les airs. Seule, errante à pas lents sur l'aride rivage, La corneille enrouée appelle aussi l'orage. Le soir, la jeune fille, en tournant son fuseau, Tire encore de sa lampe un présage nouveau, Lorsque la mèche en feu, dont la clarté s'émousse, Se couvre en petillant de noirs flocons de mousse.

* * * * *

Mais la sécurité reparaît à son tour-- L'alcyon ne vient plus sur l'humide rivage, Aux tiédeurs du soleil étaler son plumage-- L'air s'éclaircit enfin; du sommet des montagnes, Le brouillard affaissé descend dans les campagnes, Et le triste hibou, le soir, au haut des toits, En longs gémissements ne traîne plus sa voix. Les corbeaux même, instruits de la fin de l'orage, Folâtrent à l'envi parmi l'épais feuillage, Et, d'un gosier moins rauque, annonçant les beaux jours, Vont revoir dans leurs nids le fruit de leurs amours."

_"The Georgics," translated by Delille._[22]

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 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 imminency 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 consultation 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 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, and 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 Vendée. My pines bewailed their fate, and from my afflicted cedar issued a low deep voice of mourning. The ground was strewn with fruit, 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 Sèvre, 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 beautiful 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 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 purport 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 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.