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.