THE SONG. 239 
This animal is sad, and fear consumes her. 
“ Cot animal est triste et la crainte le ronge.”’ 
La Fontaine, 
But the contrary has taken place by an unexpected marvel of 
gaiety and easy forgetfulness, of lightsome indifference and truly 
French carelessness ; the national bird is scarcely out of peril before 
she recovers all her serenity, her song, her indomitable glee. Another 
wonder: her perils, her precarious existence, her cruel trials, do not 
harden her heart; she remains good as well as gay, sociable and 
trustful, presenting a model (rare enough among birds) of paternal 
love ; the lark, like the swallow, will, in case of need, nourish her 
sisters. 
Two things sustain and animate her: love and light. She makes 
love for half the year. Twice, nay, thrice, she assumes the dangerous 
happiness of maternity, the incessant travail of a hazardous educa- 
tion. And when love fails, light remains and re-inspires her. 
The smallest gleam suffices to restore her song. 
She is the daughter of day. As soon as it dawns, when the 
horizon reddens and the sun breaks forth, she springs from her furrow 
like an arrow, and bears to heaven’s gate her hymn of joy. Hallowed 
poetry, fresh as the dawn, pure and gleeful as a childish heart! 
That powerful and sonorous voice is the reapers’ signal. ‘“ We must 
start,” says the father; “do you not hear the lark?” She follows 
them, and bids them have courage; in the hot sunny hours invites 
them to slumber, and drives away the insects. Upon the bent head 
of the young girl half awakened she pours her floods of harmony. 
“No throat,” says Toussenel, “can contend with that of the lark 
in richness and variety of song, compass and velvetiness of timbre, 
duration and range of sound, suppleness and indefatigability of the 
vocal chords, The lark sings for a whole hour without half a second’s 
pause, rising vertically in the air to the height of a thousand yards, 
and stretching from side to side in the realm of clouds to gain a yet 
loftier elevation, without losing one of its notes in this immense flight. 
“What nightingale could do as much 2” 
