LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 
and was plainly enchanted by their glory. I was not less charmed to 
watch him. Our pitiful caged birds had never inspired me with the 
idea of that intelligent and powerful creature, so little, so full of 
passion. I trembled at his music. He turned his head ; his bosom 
swelled ; never singer or poet enjoyed so simple an ecstasy. It was 
not that of love, for the season was past ; clearly, it was the splendour 
of the dying day which fascinated him, — the magic of the beautiful 
sun ! " 
It is well known that the caged minstrel can be silenced at once 
by the expedient of throwing a cloth over his prison, so as to exclude 
the light which seems to inspire and call forth his song. 
In a glowing picture of the daily aspects of a virgin forest in 
Brazil, Mr. Bates touches upon this sensitiveness to the influences of 
light and darkness. About noon, the birds, by their motions, 
proclaim the approach of a thunder-storm. The heat and electric 
tension of the atmosphere gradually become almost insupportable. 
A sudden blackness fills the eastern horizon ; the sun is obscured ; 
and a mighty wind rushes through the forest, swaying the tree- 
tops; a vivid flash of lightning — a crash of thunder; and down 
comes the deluging rain. The storm soon ceases, and as the face of 
heaven gradually clears, life revives again, and the ringing minstrelsy 
of the forest awakes in every tree, to be repeated by every echo. 
So also Mr. Bates speaks of the carashue — a species of thrush, but 
smaller and plainer-coloured than our English songster — as being 
silent during the thunder heats of noon, but resuming his melodious 
strains when the sky cleared later in the day. 
A DAY IN A bird's LIFE. 
It has been justly said that no creature leads so active a life as 
the bird ; that none so fully occupies all his time. The longest day is 
insufficient for him, while the shortest night is all too long. With the 
first glimmer of morning, he sings at heaven's gate ; ever vivacious 
and restless, he refuses to give up half his existence to sleeping 
or dreaming; he desires to live all the span that is permitted to 
him. 
