176 THE LIGHT. 
sees you, watches you, sends a deep roar from the cavernous recesses 
of his throat of brass, sums up his living prey, exacts and lays claim 
to it! The horse cannot be held still; he trembles, a cold sweat, 
pours over him, he plunges to and fro. His rider, crouching between 
the watch-fires, if he succeeds in kindling any, with difficulty pre 
serves sufficient strength to feed the rampart of light which is his 
only safeguard. 
Night is equally terrible for the birds, even in our climates, where it 
would seem less dangerous. What monsters it conceals, what fright- 
ful chances for the bird lurk in its obscurity! Its nocturnal foes have 
this characteristic im common—their approach is noiseless. The 
screech-owl flies with a silent wing, as if wrapped in tow (comme 
étoupée de ovate). 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 pro- 
geny, and slaughters a whole family. 
It seems that the bird, when it has little ones, enjoys 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 born. 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 with feeble beak 
and shaking head. What will this avail if the enormous jaw of the 
serpent suddenly appears, or the horrible eye of the bird of death, 
immeasurably enlarged by fear ? 
Anxious for its young, it has little care for itself. In its season 
of solitude Nature spares it the tortures of prevision. Sad and 
dejected rather than alarmed, it is silent, it sinks down and hides its 
little head under its wings, and even its neck disappears among the 
plumes. This position of complete self-abandonment, of confidence, 
which it had held in the egg—in the happy maternal prison, where 
its security was so perfect—it resumes every evening in the midst of 
perils and without protection, 
