MIGRATIONS. 185 
which we all set to work to gather. Gradually the weather grew 
cloudy, the sky assuined a dull leaden gray, the wind sank, all was 
death-like. It was then, at about four o'clock, that simultaneously 
arrived, from all points, from the wood, from the Erdre, from the city, 
from the Loire, from the Sevre, infinite legions, darkening the day, 
which settled on the church roof, with a myriad voices, a myriad 
cries, debates, discussions. Though ignorant of their language, it was 
not difficult for us to perceive that they differed among themselves. 
It may be that the youngest, beguiled by the warm breath of autumn, 
would fain have lingered longer. But the wiser and more experienced 
travellers insisted upon departure. They prevailed; the black masses, 
moving all at once like a huge cloud, winged their flight towards the 
south-east, probably towards Italy. They had scarcely accomplished 
three hundred leagues (four or five hours’ flight) before all the 
cataracts of heaven were let loose to deluge the earth ; for a moment 
we thought it wasa Flood. Sheltered in our house, which shook with 
the furious blast, we admired the wisdom of the winged soothsayers, 
which had so prudently anticipated the annual epoch of migration. 
Clearly it was not hunger that had driven them. With a beau- 
tiful and still abundant nature around them, they had perceived and 
seized upon the precise hour, without antedating it. The morrow 
would have been too late. The insects, beaten down by the tempest 
of rain, would have been undiscoverable ; all the life on which they 
subsisted would have taken refuge in the earth. 
Moreover, it is not famine alone, or the forewarning of famine, 
that decides the movements of the migrating species. If those birds 
which live on insects are constrained to depart, those which feed on 
wild berries might certainly remain. What impels them? Is it the 
cold? Most of them could readily endure it. To these special reasons 
we must add another, of a loftier and more general character—it is 
the need of light. 
Even as the plant unalterably follows the day and the sun, even 
as the mollusc (to use a previous illustration) rises towards and prefers 
to live in the brighter regions—even so the bird, with its sensitive 
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