AS THE LABOURER OF MAN. 



219 



forms and a hundred legions, differing in arms and character, but 

 all endowed with wings, all sharing a seeming privilege of ubi- 

 quity. 



To the universal presence of the insect, to its ubiquity of numbers, 

 responds that of the bird, of his swiftness, of his wing. The great 

 moment is that when the insect, developing itself through the heat, 



meets the bird face to face; the bird multiplied in numbers ; the bird 

 which, having no milk, miist feed at this very moment a numerous 

 family with her living prey. Every year the world would be en- 

 dangered if the bird could suckle, if its aliment were the work of an 

 individual, of a stomach. But see, the noisy, restless brood, by ten, 

 twenty, or thirty little bills, cry out for their prey; and the exigency 

 is so great, such the maternal ardour to respond to this demand, that the 

 desperate tomtit, unable to satisfy its score of children with three 

 hundred caterpillars a day, will even invade the nests of other birds 

 and pick oiit the brains of their young. 



From our windows, which opened on the Luxemburg, we observed 

 every winter the commencement of this useful war of the bird against 

 the insect. We saw it in December inaugurate the year's labour. 

 The honest and respectable household of the thrush, which one might 

 call the leaf-lifter {tourne-feuilles), did their work by couples ; when 

 the sunshine followed rain, they visited the pools, and lifted the 



