THE SONG. 287 
with the peasant. God has distributed them everywhere. Woods 
and thickets, clearings, fields, vineyards, humid meadows, reedy pools, 
mountain forests, even the peaks snow-crowned—he has allotted each 
winged tribe to its particular region—has deprived no country, no 
locality, of this harmony, so that man can wander nowhere, can 
neither ascend so high, nor descend so low, but that he will be greeted 
with a chorus of joy and consolation. 
Day scarcely begins, scarcely does the stable-bell ring out for 
the herds, but the wagtail appears to conduct, and frisk and 
hover around them. She mingles with the cattle, and familiarly 
accompanies the hind. She knows that she is loved both by man 
and the beasts, which she defends against insects. She boldly plants 
herself on the head of the cow, on the back of the sheep. By day 
she never quits them; she leads them homeward faithfully at 
evening. 
The water-wagtail, equally punctual, is at her post; she flutters 
round the washerwomen ; she hops on her long legs into the water, 
and asks for crumbs; by a strange instinet of mimicry she raises and 
dips her tail, as if to imitate the motion of beating the linen, to do 
her work also and earn her pay. 
The bird of the fields before all others, the labourer’s bird, is the 
lark, his constant companion, which he encounters everywhere in his 
painful furrow, ready to encourage, to sustain him, to sing to him of 
