256 JUxNGLE FOLK 



with the lot of these, how happ}^ is that of the 

 birds. 



Birds are, Hke children, loath to go to bed. They 

 feel no w^eariness, and so great is their enjoyment of 

 life, that they are almost sorry when the sun disappears 

 for a little. 



Jules Michelet, than whom no more wrong-headed 

 naturalist ever hved, declares that birds dread the 

 night. " Heavy," he writes, "for all creatures is the 

 gloom of evening. . . . Night is equally terrible for the 

 birds. . . . What monsters it conceals, w^hat frightful 

 chances for the bird lurk in its obscurity. Its nocturnal 

 foes have this characteristic in common — their ap- 

 proach is noiseless. The screech-owl flies with a silent 

 wdng, as if wTapped in tow. 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, en- 

 joys 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 

 bom. 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 wdth feeble beak 

 and shaking head. WTiat will this avail if the enormous 

 jaw of the serpent suddenly appears, or the horrible 



