MIGRATIONS. 185 



which we all set to work to gather. Gradually the weather grew 

 cloudy, the sky assumed a dull leaden gi"ay, 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 Loii'e, 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 difl&cult 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 vipon departure. They prevailed ; the black masses, 

 moving all at once like a huge cloud, winged then* 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. Tlie insects, beaten down by the tempest 

 ( )f 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 



