164 THE RED-BREAST 



red-breasts in the beeches of a neighbouring park. Birds 

 have that pecuHarity of always appearing to be the same 

 that we have heard before. Years pass away, we grow old, 

 we see our friends die or disappear, we see revolutions 

 change the face of things in the world, our illusions van- 

 ish one by one, and yet, in the trees of the orchards or 

 the beeches in the woods, the birds that we have known 

 ill cliildhood rc])eat the same melodious call, modulate 

 the same musical phrases with the same voice, apparently 

 as young as ever. Time never seems to touch them, and 

 as ihcv lu'dc out of sight wlien they die, as we never 

 witness their agony, we can easily imagine that we are 

 yet in \\\v j^esence of the same songsters that charmed us 

 in early youth. 



Be that as it will, the red-breasts to which I have been 

 listening to-night were warbling their song with the same 

 tender and caressing expression as when 1 was young. 

 They were skipping about merrily and familiarly quite 

 near me in the reddening branches, and I could dis- 

 tinctly perceive their bright black eyes, their brown 

 heads and their breast with its beautiful leddish orange 

 tint. The aspect of the bushes, covered with blackber- 

 ries, the particular scent of the woods at the latter end 

 of autumn, the charm of the beautiful red tints of that 

 season of the year, added to the hallucination. I thought 

 that the golden days of yore had come back, when, 

 chiring the summer holidays. 1 would lie on my back, 



