460 Bird -Lore 



forester, sui)er\'isi)r of highways and water pri\'ileges, and game-warden — La 

 Fontaine grew up in easy circumstances and amid agreeable surroundings. It 

 may ha\'e been his love of thinking and dreaming about everything he saw which 

 caused him to idle away his time, or it may be that his lack of practical applica- 

 tion was due to too much ease at home and want of regular employment. He 

 w^as so interested in Nature that it is said he would forget his dinner and ever}'- 

 thing else, in order to watch the manoeuvers of a colony of ants burying a dead 

 fly. The most ordinary creatures and their habits became a profound study 

 to him, and he grew up to young manhood, well versed in the lore of wood and 

 wild. When he visited the Court, with its lords and ladies of elegant manners 

 and fashion, and w^andered through the lovely but artilicial pleasure-grounds 

 of Versailles, he was but little impressed, and failed to please the King, who was 

 accustomed to stately demeanor and flattering tongue. Nevertheless he gained 

 friends, who, throughout his life, helped him from time to time, and who dis- 

 covered his simple, childlike spirit beneath his somew'hat sarcastic manner, 

 and gladly forgave his many shortcomings. 



La Fontaine wTote many poems and tales, not of the best, which contributed 

 nothing to his reputation or fame, and these are seldom read except by critics 

 and scholars. It is likely that he would not have been remembered had he not 

 found himself at last, when he wrote his remarkable series of fables; and these 

 he could never have written had he not been so familiar with the living 

 creatures around him. Of all his fables, his own life contained perhaps the 

 saddest and gladdest moral, for, while he had to pay the cost of many follies, 

 he had the great joy of learning truth from Nature herself. 



There is not space to quote more than a few random lines from his works, 

 to show how keen and sure his observation was. To express the adage that 

 those who do not seize opportunity when it comes, lose it, he told a fable 

 in verse about the Heron, which let good fish go by for lack of appetite, but, 

 w^hen hungry, disdained the "mean little fishes" that chanced his w^ay, and 

 was finally glad to stay his empty stomach with a single snail, found on the 

 river-bank. 



This fable begins: 



"One day — no matter v\hen or where, — 

 A long-legged Heron chanced to fare 

 Bj' a certain's river's brink, 

 With his long, sharp beak 

 Helved on his slender neck : — 

 Twas a fish-spear, you might think. 

 The water was clear and still; 

 The carp and the pike there at will 

 Pursued their silent fun, 

 Turning up, ever and anon, 

 A golden side to the sun. 

 With ease might the Heron have made 

 Great profits in this fishing trade. 



