218 



THE BIKD 



country, made their campaign so much the more successfully, because 

 each waged war in its own manner. The black, the gray, and the 

 egg-layer (such were their military titles), marched together in close 

 array, and recoiled not a step ; the dreamer or philosopher preferred 

 skirmishing by himself (chouanner), and accomplished much more 

 work. A superb black cat, the companion of their solitude, studied 

 daily the track of the field mouse and the lizard, hunted the wasp, 

 devoured the Spanish fly, always at some distance in advance of 

 the respectful hens. 



One word more in reference to them, and one regret. Our business 

 being finished, we prepared for our departure. But what would become 

 of them ? Given to a friend, they would assuredly be eaten. We 

 deliberated long. Then, coming to a vigorous decision, according to 

 the ancient creed of savage tribes, who believed that it was sweetest 

 to die by the hands of those we love, and thought that by eating 

 their heroes they themselves became heroic, we made of them, not 

 / without lamentation, a funereal banquet. 



It is a truly grand spectacle to see descend one might almost say 

 from heaven against this frightful swarming of the universal 

 monster-birth which awakens in the spring, hissing, whirring, croak- 

 ing, buzzing, in its huge hunger, the universal saviour, in a hundred 



