HARMONIES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE. 





WHY do the swallow and so many other birds 

 place their habitation so near to that of man ? 

 Why do they make themselves our friends, mingling 

 with our labours, and lightening them by their songs ? 

 Why is that happy spectacle of alliance and harmony, 

 which is the end of nature, presented only in the 

 J u climates of our temperate zone ? 



For this reason, that here the two parties, man and the bird, are 

 free from the burdensome fatalities which in the south separate them, 

 and place them in antagonism to one another. 



That which enervates man, on the contrary, excites the bird, 

 endows him with ardent activity, inquietude, and the vehemence 

 which finds vents in harsh cries. Under the Tropics both are in 

 complete divergence, slaves of a despotic nature, which weighs upon 

 them differently. 



To pass from those climates to ours is to become free. 

 Here we dominate over the nature which there subjugated us. I 

 quit willingly, and without one wistful glance, the overwhelming 

 paradise where, a feeble child, I have languished in the arms of the 

 great nurse who, with a too potent draught, has intoxicated while 

 thinking to suckle me. 



